Andrew Short Marine Shuts the doors

Andrew Short Marine in Sydney has gone into liquidation. Managing director Matthew Short confirmed the company had shut its doors on Thursday.

Receivers BRI Ferrier had been appointed several weeks ago, and put up for sale two of the boat retailer’s commercial properties to raise $17m to pay off creditors.

GE Capital had repossessed about 20 boats valued at $7m last month. Mr Short told the Sunday Times that GE was "nervous" about the company’s finances. "But as soon as we sell the building we will all back to business as usual," he told the paper about two weeks ago. "The boat business is still going OK, thank goodness."

But last week, on the advice of the National Australia Bank, he asked BRI Ferrier to liquidate the company: "The rumour was that we were in receivership and the amount of business dropped off so we had to make a call on the advice of the bank and much to our tears and disappointment we decided the company had to go," he told the paper. "I was wishing like anything that the company would survive but it became more and more difficult and then it became intolerable."

Andrew Short Marine was the largest Sea Ray and Mercury outboard dealer in Australia. Another company associated with Andrew Short Marine, A&M Investments, also went into receivership a month ago.

Matthew Short took charge of the company in 2009 after his brother Andrew was tragically washed overboard and killed when his yacht ran aground during an offshore yacht race.