Following on from Part 1, Cullen Group called a site meeting of some of their subbies at the Boheme Apartments site for Wednesday 23rd November where a lot of unfunded promises were made.
We weren't invited despite the fact that they need us to be able to remove their scaffold and finish the job.
Our project manager attended and recorded the meeting on his phone.
One of the first things Cullen Group owner and Managing Director asked was "we want to know who will be back"?
He then said "the more you can support us, the more we can claim, the more we can claim the more you get paid"!
That is what a Ponzi scheme looks like, the person or company on the bottom pays for the people at the top. They knew months ago their were in trouble yet they coerced and badgered subbies to stick with them even though they were well and truly gone.
Evidence of earlier financial trouble was by way of a default judgement against Cullen Group in March of 2016 and a search of credit reporting agent proves that Wayne Kenneth Cullen is the subject of a District Court Claim in the amount of $301,642, filed on behalf of a large creditor on 25.07.2016.
At this stage they are on a wing and a prayer, they want their "loyal" subbies to throw good money after bad so they can claim more from the developer, supposedly to pay more to the subbies.
He said "the program we will build is based on your commitment".
One of his staff took the floor and said "we have sequencing issues, the painters and lining trades are driving the whole f..king sh.t. We got rid of the f..king sh.t, they are now working under our regime, not their own"!
Their project manager tried to divide and conquer the subbies by turning them on each other when he said "I don't expect you guys to bag a contractor but have you found any issues"?
A few subbies fell into this trap by bagging other subbies, taking the focus off what the meeting should have been about which was payments in accordance with the subcontracts in place.
I don't know about you but I for one don't consider that to be a professional approach to entice subcontractors to get back on-board a severely listing, sinking ship.
At the meeting, Wayne Cullen said he was "putting 6 million dollars worth of his assets up as security".
If he did have 6 million dollars worth of assets, the company wouldn't be floundering to the point where, in March 2016, 8 months earlier, they had a default judgement recorded against them to the tune of over $73,000 simply because they didn't turn up to defend the indefensible.
They promised to pay subbies but the payments would be 3 weeks late so October claims due for payment at the end of November would not be paid then.
Those due and payable would be paid on the 21st December, 3 weeks late and so on until the end of March.
Cullen Group MD Wayne Cullen said he didn't expect to be back to 30 day trading terms until the end of March 2017.
He said "the root cause of the problem was that their other projects had disputed amounts totalling 4 million and when that money was paid, it would NOT be tipped into this project".
From this it was clear that they were using the money for this project to finish other projects. Effectively they were using the subbies money to pay for other jobs, there that Ponzi scheme again.
If that's the case, why even mention the 4 million? There were many millions mentioned but none of it was earmarked for this project.
He said there was 2.5 million retention in a joint account with the developer. Why even mention it when that money will not be used to pay subcontractors? It is retention to be held for the defects liability period to ensure that the builder will return for any repairs and maintenance.
The block layer voiced his concern about how much money he would need to outlay on blocks after the end of the month (November) when he doesn't get paid for the previous months work.
The site project manager came back with, "that's advantageous to you, better to do it after the end of month than before, fucking happy days"!
To me that is sickening, the only thing that is advantageous is to be paid on time every time by these bastards.
Despite all these RED flags, some of the subbies in attendance said "we'll stick solid with you mate". I guess they were just trying to protect what they have outstanding already but to me, it is throwing good money after bad.
The day a builder stays loyal to a subcontractor, hell will freeze over.
On Wednesday 14th December 16 QBCC suspended Cullen's builders licence but that didn't stop these Cullen from emailing all their subbies to find out who would be coming back to work early in the New Year.
I received a notice from our insurance company on Tuesday 18.12.16 with a total of almost 1 million in claims and default notices against Cullen.
On Wednesday 19th Dec I was told that Cullen would go into receivership on Friday leaving all their hard working subbies holding an empty bag for Christmas.