Fast food chain Pie Face has been bought by petrol and convenience company United Petroleum after it went into receivership last year.
The sale will see United take full ownership of Pie Face, with Pie Face products to be sold in United petrol stations in the coming weeks.
United Petroleum chief executive Gary Brinkworth has said that the acquisition of Pie Face fits within United’s growth strategy.
“We took the decision that Pie Face would fit perfectly with our strategy of growing our business and achieving scale by expanding into new categories whilst growing customer numbers and building capability” he said.
The sales agreement will see current Pie Face CEO Bruce Feodoroff remain CEO, with United also stressing that it will be business as usual for Pie Face, including for employees and franchisees.
The news comes a week after United was under fire from the Fair Work Ombudsman for underpaying a number of employees, many of whom were migrants.
Pie Face has been in trouble since 2014, when it went into voluntary administration. The company was able to save itself when shareholders signed off on a Deed of Company Arrangement (DoCA).
In a case study released by the administrators, Jirsch Sutherland in 2015, the DoCA took a lot of money away from unsecured creditors.
“Under the terms of the Pie Face DoCA unsecured creditors will get no more than 19 cents in the dollar. Total creditor claims (excluding inter-company claims) stand at approximately $50 million.”
The DoCA also saw the companies co-founder Wayne Homschek forced off the board of directors.
They would then get into financial trouble again, and in November last year Pie Face’s primary funder TCA Global Credit Master Funder appointed Christopher Palmer and Liam Bailey from O’Brien Palmer as receivers and managers of Pie Face.
The company was then put up for sale, with its future uncertain until it was acquired by United.
The sale which has been made for an undisclosed sum, will be finalised shortly.
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