By Gemma Daley
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Australia’s government will this week update its strategy for ABC Learning Centres Ltd., the Brisbane-based child-care operator seized by lenders this month, Education Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.
ABC will review a third of its operations, covering more than 30,000 children, receiver McGrathNicol & Partners said on Nov. 26. All centers will remain open until the end of 2008 and 656 operations will continue into the new year as some 386 centers will be reviewed.
“As this week unfolds, we will be in a better position as the receiver makes more information available,” Gillard told Ten Network television’s Meet the Press program today.
ABC Learning, which looks after one in three Australian children in daycare at 1,042 centers, was seized after the credit crisis drove up its interest payments. The company, which looks after about 110,000 children, will have financing from its lenders to continue trading into 2009, receiver McGrathNicol & Partners said last week.
Australia’s federal government on Nov. 7 pledged A$22 million ($14 million) to keep ABC Learning’s centers open until at least Dec. 31.
“We are trying to lobby the government to extend the closures until April 2009,” Amanda White, a mother of one whose daughter attends an ABC center in the Perth suburb of Madora Bay, said in an e-mail. “Our center is one that will be closing, there is not enough time to find a suitable buyer for our center and have all the paperwork completed to allow the center to remain open with the same staff and have no effect on our children.”
ABC has A$1.66 billion in liabilities in Australia, creditors were told Nov. 18. There are no redundancy plans for workers at ABC Learning and the outside manager doesn’t intend to increase fees in 2009, McGrath’s receiver Chris Honey said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Gemma Daley in Canberra at gdaley@bloomberg.net
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