ProPrint can exclusively reveal that the country’s biggest trade printer CMYKhub has been in a ten month battle to buy the business of Bhaskar Datta’s failed outfit Media Options, a battle CMYKhub now looks like winning.

Media Options was part of the National Trade Printers business that collapsed with $3.3m debts last September.

Clive Denholm from CMYKhub told ProPrint, “We’ve bought the business, subject to the administrator successfully recovering the assets through the courts.”

The administrator Veritas Advisory says it has ‘tried every possible route’ to avoid court action to recover the assets, but now has no choice. No court date is yet fixed.

That those assets need recovering through the courts is due to the complexities of the situation, which has seen two of Datta’s immediate family members run the business since September under a controversial $1000 a month licensing deal with new entities SurePrint and Sydney Print Hub.

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After expressing interest when Media Options went down in September last year CMYKhub battled through multiple complexities and eventually paid the administrator a $50,000 deposit for the business back in February. However the purchase wasn’t able to go through then due to various legal issues.

Now the creditors’ committee has accepted the offer, so CMYKhub has requested that the administrator seek immediate court action to force the two Media Options licencees to hand back all customer lists, plant and intellectual property, and cease trading with former Media Options clients.

However when contacted at Sydney Print Hub Bhaskar Datta told ProPrint that former Media Options staff are ‘now working for CMYKhub’, and that they ‘have the Media Options client list’.

CMYKhub refutes Datta’s assertion saying that only one former subcontractor of Media Options is working for them, and that it does not have the Media Options client list.

Datta also told ProPrint that the legal issues were ‘all news to me’ and he said he is ‘out of printing’ and is working as an ‘online marketing consultant’. He says he ‘sometimes’ uses the Sydney Print Hub offices for meetings, and also ‘consults’ for them. On LinkedIn Datta lists his job title as ‘creative business development’.

Bhaskar Datta has been seeking to rebuff CMYKhub’s plan to acquire Media Options, and buy the business himself, a business which since September has been run by the two related entities, which have Datta’s son and sister-in-law as the sole directors.

The deal to buy Media Options has been severely complicated by that decision of the administrator Veritas back in September to licence two new print businesses to handle the printing of Media Options; Sydney Print Hub, which has Datta’s son Rahul Rajeev Datta as sole director, and SurePrint, with Datta’s sister-in-law Amrit Chandra as sole director.

Some in the industry allege that effectively the licensing arrangement has meant that Bhaskar Datta is able to escape the $3.3m in debts that Media Options racked up, and through his family carry on printing, with virtually the same clients, with virtually the same staff, albeit in two separate businesses, leaving more than a sour taste in the mouth of the rest of the printing industry, many of whom are now saddled with carrying the burden of his debt. The administrator denies it is a Phoenix play.

When contacted at the Sydney Print Hub on Friday Bhaskar Datta claimed he was ‘just a consultant’. He also claimed he didn’t have the phone numbers of his son nor of his sister in law ‘handy’. Likewise his son Rahul Rajeev Datta refused to comment when later called by ProPrint.

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After a delayed process with multiple legal disputes, the creditors inspection committee resolved on Monday last week to back the offer to sell the business to CMYKhub. Sources say the creditors committee has been ‘filthy’ at the prospect of Datta buying back the business, for what would be fraction of the debts he ran up.

CMYKhub is buying the client list, the goodwill, the unencumbered assets and the intellectual property of the company. CMYKhub says it will also employ some key staff from the two licenced entities.

Media Options last listed a tax return in 2009. ProPrint believes its annual turnover at the time of its collapse was running at between $4m-$5m.

Major creditors from its collapse include Heidelberg Print Finance, owed $1.6m; the ATO, owed 762,000; Fuji Xerox which is owed $134,000 and Spicers Paper at $100,000, with a host of smaller trade creditors. Employees are owed superannuation entitlements of $215,000-250,000.

ProPrint understands creditors will be lucky to get 10c in the dollar, even if the CMYKhub deal goes through, more likely half of that.

When the Bhaskar Datta operated National Trade Print which owns Media Options went into Administration in September last year it left staff to claim entitlements from the government operated Fair Entitlement Guarantee (FEGS) scheme.

According to the administrators, the company collapsed due to a decline in revenue and unsustainable overheads, which included a monthly payroll of $120,000, and it says it lost two key sales representatives who were generating about $200,000 in monthly sales in October 2012.

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Nine days before the business collapsed, Datta established Sydney Print Hub, and installed his son as director. He had established SurePrint a year earlier in June 2012 and installed his sister-in-law as director there.

When Media Options collapsed Datta bought and transferred the Heidelberg press and Xerox digital press into the new entities for what the administrator claimed was ‘an above liquidation value price’.

CMYKhub first approached the administrator Veritas last September. However neither CMYKhub nor anyone else made an offer for Media Options, as the situation was too complicated. The administrator is believed to have given the controversial licences that Datta requested to keep the business operating so as to realise the best return for creditors.

Bhaskar Datta is no stranger to collapsing print businesses, Media Options is the second time a print business he has owned has gone under.

Legal action is ongoing to recover asset for the benefit of the creditors.

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