A former AFL star has been able to wipe millions of dollars in company debt and reopen the collapsed business a few hundred metres down the road, despite owing $4.5 million to staff, suppliers and the tax office.
Chris Knights, a former Adelaide and Richmond footballer, is the chief executive of marketing agency Zib Digital, which engaged in a process known as ‘legal phoenixing’, which allows a company to wind up and start again.
Mr Knights told staff in May he was closing the company’s doors, leaving about a third of its workforce without a job or their owed entitlements.
A former employee said staff were given a day’s notice that “we were surplus … and the business was put into administration”.
Four days later, Zib Digital registered a…