Jobs lost as Australia's Kit Digital is placed into administration

THE Australian arm of a global tech firm has gone into administration, leaving about 70 workers without jobs. Kit Digital Australia, a subsidiary of New York-based software group Kit Digital, was handed over to administrators on December 20.

PPB Advisory administrators Nicholas Martin, Marcus Ayres and Stephen Longley were appointed to assess the company's finances.

The IT group has done work for the Australian government, NAB, Betfair and Foxtel.

Administrators said the Australian arm was forced to close after its parent company ran into financial difficulty. One former local employee told BusinessDay most staff had not been paid since November 25.

PPB Advisory, which met creditors on Friday, said about 90 workers were initially made redundant, with 15 to 20 jobs saved when contracts were moved to a new entity. It said the financial state of the company was being assessed, and would not reveal how much creditors were owed.

Other local subsidiaries, Idaptive and Hyro Digital, have also been placed in administration. Kit Digital took over Hyro last June.

The US parent company said in December it had dismissed Grant Thornton as the company's independent auditor and was undertaking a restatement of the company's historical financial statements for 2009, 2010 and 2011. The international group's clients include Associated Press, AT&T, BBC, BSkyB, Disney-ABC, Google and News Corp.