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The Ox and his familiarity with administrators

FINANCIER Colin Oxlade has been doing his bit to keep the company administration business in business this year.

It's just a shame that The Ox, as he is known around the traps, can't manage the same for some of his own business ventures.

A move last week by a nervous creditor to appoint an administrator to former toy maker Brainytoys, where Oxlade is managing director, took his corporate collapse tally to three this year.

In February, a court-appointed liquidator took control of his boutique advisory outfit Vanilla Group Australia, after a petition from an architectural firm, and in March, similar thing occurred at Australian Sports Car Promotions, where he is a co-director.

The latest collapse must be particularly disappointing for long-suffering investors of Brainytoys.

Shares in what is effectively a shell company have been suspended since January in the hope a takeover bid might emerge.

Oxlade joined the board in June, together with former Thrifty Car Rental boss and co-founder of the West Coast Eagles, John Walker, as well as advertising executive Richard Simpson, whose most recent role was as an executive director of Winteray Capital, the mob that reneged on a $12 million underwriting deal with the Michael Wooldridge-chaired Dia-B Tech in July.

Simpson resigned from the Brainytoys board in October, about the time he severed ties with Winteray.

Walker's resignation was announced a month ago, and according to Brainytoys, he was stepping down so he could concentrate on his new gig as chairman of Planet Power Energy, a retail business specialising in renewable energy.

It wasn't that long ago Oxlade and Simpson were quietly spruiking a planned backdoor listing of Planet Power, which currently has four stores in mostly regional centres into Brainytoys for about $15m.

They lost out to CBD Energy, however, which announced last month that it would take a 20 per cent stake in Planet Power, with an option of increasing that to 51 per cent by 2012.

The Ox says he's pretty disappointed by the actions of the Brainytoys' creditor, especially when he was in the middle of negotiating a recapitalisation plan and possible resources sector acquisition.

He told City Beat that the winding up of Vanilla Group Australia was the result of a property deal gone wrong.

Unfortunately, he is unable to shed any light on what went wrong over at Australian Sports Car Promotions.

According to Oxlade, a former neighbour had named him as a co-director without his knowledge.

He's since established Vanilla Management & Investment Group and has been helping out the new management of Winteray Limited, parent company of Winteray Capital, sort out its complicated affairs.

One of his first moves was to appoint an administrator to Winteray Capital, which has been subject to legal threats from the owners of Dia-B tech, now known as Pallane Medical.

Winteray Capital has a string of failed deals to its name, including the ill-fated Rewards Factory, which has since been delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange.