Stokes Wheeler Liquidation, a third-generation construction company that was a major player in the Queensland building industry, has gone out of business and owes creditors about $20 million. The company worked on a number of high-profile projects on the Gold Coast, yet now it has left behind unfinished buildings and a growing number of creditors who don’t know if they will get their money back.
A Brief History of the Company
Stokes Wheeler was a family-owned business that had been around for a long time in the construction industry. It started in 1928. The company was based in Queensland and had an excellent reputation in a number of areas, such as hospitality, tourism, education, aged care, and building multistory homes. Stokes Wheeler was proud of its core belief that service and honesty should support quality construction projects.
Stokes Wheeler has worked on important projects in the hospitality, aged care, education, and residential sectors over the years. Even though the company had a long and successful history in the industry, it was still affected by the pressures of the construction market.
The Collapse: Bankruptcy and Money Problems
Stokes Wheeler went into voluntary administration in February 2025. By July of that year, it was officially put into liquidation. The company was in an untenable financial position because it had a lot of projects that lost money and used up too many resources. Stokes Wheeler now owes an alarming $20 million in debts, and both secured and unsecured creditors are going to lose a lot of money.
The company had to pay:
- Up to $1.66 million for employees.
- Unsecured Creditors: More than $13.5 million.
- Secured creditors are owed $3.2 million, with a large amount going to Westpac.
Unsecured creditors have been told that they probably won’t be able to get back any of the money they are owed, which is a sad fact. The collapse has left a lot of these creditors in a bad financial situation, and in a lot of cases, they won’t be able to get their money back.
Big Projects That Were Affected
At the time of its collapse, Stokes Wheeler was working on four big projects, but all of them have now been put on hold:
- The 40-unit apartment complex at Palm Beach (Elevaire) is the biggest project on the books. Stokes Wheeler owes Evoke Property $6.49 million, and they now have to figure out how to get the money back.
- Bounce Hostel in Surfers Paradise is a big project that is now on hold, so the developers have to find new contractors.
- Aged Care Facility in Sunnybank: A big project for the aged care sector that is now on hold for an unknown amount of time.
- Another important healthcare project that was never finished is the medical centre in Pimpama.
Developers and stakeholders are now rushing to find new builders to finish these projects because the contracts were cancelled. This puts even more pressure on the local construction market.
Money Problems and Bad Management
There were many signs that the collapse was coming. Stokes Wheeler had been having money problems for almost five years because many of his projects didn’t go as planned and lost money. Even though things weren’t going well, the company kept working in a risky environment, taking on more complex and costly projects.
Also, Stokes Wheeler was found to have not handled its money well:
- The company’s six project trust accounts were empty, which meant that there was no money available to pay for project-related costs.
- Shortfall in the Retention Account: The retention account, which was meant to help pay off Stokes Wheeler’s debts, was $2.7 million short. The Queensland Building and Construction Commission froze this account as part of the investigation.
- Stokes Wheeler said that developers owed them more than $5.3 million in unpaid retentions. The administrators, on the other hand, thought that less than 10% of that amount was “realisable.”
Administrators found out that the business had been trading while it was broke. Early investigations showed that the company’s directors kept running the business even though they knew it was having financial problems. The directors wrote a deed of company arrangement as a last-ditch effort to keep the company from heading out of business, but creditors voted it down, which led to the company’s dissolution.
Things you own and things you owe
Even though Stokes Wheeler owed a lot of money to creditors, they still had some assets that were taken as part of the liquidation process:
- The company owed Westpac $2.97 million, plus $2.02 million in overdraft and bank guarantee facilities.
- Unreported Assets: The administrators also found a loader, a forklift, and several passenger vehicles that the company owned but didn’t tell anyone about.
These assets, on the other hand, probably won’t be enough to pay off all of the company’s debts. Instead, they are being used to pay off some of them.
Effect on the Building Industry
The failure of Stokes Wheeler has had big effects on the construction industry in the area. The failure of such a well-known and established company has made many people in the industry worry about their own financial stability, especially since their own projects have been affected.
Because the Gold Coast has a lot of unfinished projects, developers and subcontractors are now rushing to find new contractors to finish these important jobs. The collapse has also affected the company’s workers and employees, who are owed millions of dollars and may never get all of it.
Also, projects that were supposed to improve the area’s housing and infrastructure are now running behind plan because of ongoing construction work that isn’t finished. This makes the area’s construction problems even worse.
What We Learned
Other construction companies should learn from the Stokes Wheeler collapse. It is very important to manage your money well, especially in high-risk fields like construction. Stokes Wheeler’s philosophy was based on providing good service and building projects with integrity. However, its poor financial management has finally brought it down.
The failure also shows how important it is to be open and honest with creditors, employees, and subcontractors. The company might have been able to avoid going out of business if it had been more honest about its money problems.
The collapse shows how sensitive the construction industry is to changes in the economy, projects that don’t make money, and bad financial management. This could make other companies in the same field more closely watched and even lead to changes in the rules to stop future collapses.
What will happen next for Stokes Wheeler?
The future of Stokes Wheeler’s assets, projects, and employees is still up in the air as the liquidation process goes on. Some employees may get paid through the liquidation process, but most creditors will probably lose a lot of money. The local construction market will feel the effects for a while as projects that aren’t done yet wait to be finished.
In the future, the construction industry in Queensland and somewhere else will need to rethink how businesses handle financial risk and make sure their dealings are open and honest. We hope that Stokes Wheeler’s failure will teach others in the business a lesson.
In conclusion
The closing of Stokes Wheeler is a sad reminder of how weak the construction industry is financially. The company’s failure has left a big hole in the Gold Coast construction market. They owed a lot of money to creditors and had a lot of unfinished projects. As creditors and developers try to put things back together, the industry needs to think about how to stop this from happening again.
