MARTIN O’BRIEN FORMES FACES AXE

Forme supplier and cutter Martin O’Brien Formes has been placed into administration, and will be liquidated, as the company owes significant sums in unpaid tax and unpaid superannuation contributions.

Print21 understands the ATO is owed a multi-million dollar amount by Martin O'Brien Formes, although the first creditors' report has not been created yet.

In terms of unpaid super to staff, Martin O'Brien Formes already had an agreement with the ATO to schedule payments on its superannuation debt, but it is believed to have fallen behind on these. Some employees say their super is more than six months behind, others say more than that.

Staff numbers at O'Brien had reduced by half in the past five years, to around 20. Most of those staff have already found work at other print and packaging businesses in Melbourne, leaving Martin O'Brien Formes with little in the way of staff.

Four years ago it moved into a new 2800sqm facility in Braeside with optimism for the future, but the Melbourne-based business has struggled to adapt to a changing market, as former packaging and commercial print clients have increasingly brought cutting in-house.

Established in the 1950s by Dennis O’Brien, the company was owned by his son Martin O’Brien, who is believed to live in South Australia. His son, Jordan O’Brien, was running day-to-day operations. 

The business has, or had, a multitude of die cutting, plotter cutting, laser cutting, and CNC router cutting equipment. The current location of some of that equipment including benders, a router, laser cutter and plotter table, will be of interest to the administrator / liquidator.

As well as providing a cutting service, the business supplied die-cutting forms, custom packaging, promotional displays, point-of-sale stands, and manufacturing supplies.

The end of Martin O'Brien Formes leaves only one main formes supplier in Victoria, following seven years of turbulence in the sector; Fred Schrembi's Able Cutting Formes. BML provides a cutting service, but mainly in smaller formats.

Martin O'Brien Formes bought competitor Triforme Australia in 2018, shortly after the country’s biggest forms supplier, Hygrade, collapsed, owing $6.6m to creditors, including $1.45m to the ATO. Some 50 staff lost their jobs, and Hygrade’s managing director Alf Holmes was subsequently slapped with a five year ban on being a director by ASIC.