Owner of liquidated business opened another within three hours

Wednesday, 10 July 2024

The boss of a failed recruitment agency that owes $1.5 million in tax registered a second agency just three hours after the original was liquidated.

Cassandra Knox registered Trinity Employment Services Limited in February, 2021. It advertised work including agricultural and traffic control before it was liquidated on May 30 this year.

Among the unsecured creditors are 17 individuals and nine companies, including Westland Dairy Company Limited.

The company received about $150,000 in Covid wage subsidies for 50 staff.

The liquidators report, released on Monday, showed Trinity owes $1.55m to Inland Revenue and $25,000 to employees due to “failure to provide for taxation” and “economic factors” affecting the industry.

Knox - using the name Cassandra Slumskie, which is her ex-husband’s surname - registered a new company, Elite Employment Limited, two hours and 55 minutes after Trinity was liquidated. It displays the same antler logo Trinity used on its website. The registered office matches Knox’s West Melton address.

“We are a passionate and experienced female-owned and operated recruitment company that specialises in contracted out temp staff,” the Elite website states.

“We are passionate about caring for people and the communities we work with and are excited to see what positive change we can bring to your business and your team.”

Some paragraphs on the Elite website, such as Knox’s description on the staff page, are identical to those used on the removed Trinity website.

Knox won the South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce Emerging Leader Award in 2022.

Knox did not respond to inquiries from The Press.

However, eight staff members who used to work at Trinity spoke about the business and its boss.

Former Trinity employee, Gini Lambertucci, who now works at Elite, said Knox was “the best boss” she ever had.

“We couldn’t survive, it was a really tough year last year - the country was in a really bad situation. We had the same problem, like a lot of companies.”

Despite this, and some employees not bringing much money into the business, Knox ensured her employees got paid, Lambertucci said.

She said when Trinity got back on its feet, Knox approached Inland Revenue to offer a payment plan for its unpaid tax, but this was rejected.

“She’s a really good boss, she was really good to all the employees and she tried her best.”

Another former employee who now works for Elite, who asked not to be named, said the job was “perfectly fine” and had “nothing negative to say” about Trinity.

“Every day there is another company going into liquidation - it’s not uncommon.”

A third former employee now working at Elite said Knox was an “amazing person”.

A Trinity employee who resigned two months before it was liquidated said she and her colleagues were “always wondering whether or not we would get paid on time”.

She recalled three instances her wages came late, which Knox blamed on “problems with the bank”. The employee was unaware of the impending liquidation.

Four other former employees, who also would not be named, shared similar experiences.

They all claimed payments came late, which were blamed on the bank’s end, and said some temp employees didn’t get paid at all.

One said she resumed anxiety medication after five years without them because of stresses in the job.

Multiple former employees said they were contacted by Inland Revenue as part of its investigation.

The liquidator expects their investigation to take six months. They will search for further assets to be realised, shareholder’s current accounts to be claimed, or any irregular transactions to be “clawed back”.