Wellington's Habitual Fix on Featherston liquidated for a second time

A second business operating Wellington's Habitual Fix on Featherston Street has been placed into liquidation in the space of a year, with the Beehive end of town still impacted by the November 2016 earthquakes.

Precious 1400 Ltd operated Habitual Fix, which sells salads, sandwiches, wraps, smoothies and juices, for a year until it was placed into liquidation on Jan. 17. The previous operator, Sizzlepop Ltd, went into liquidation in December 2016.

The first report on Precious 1400's liquidation by ShephardDunphy says the company expected sales to increase when businesses returned to their premises, but with many firms relocating due to building closures, "the expected increase did not occur and the viability of the company was at risk."

The previous liquidation cited the sales downturn immediately following the earthquakes when the 15-storey Asteron Centre which houses around 2,500 staff was evacuated for a fortnight. More recently, demolition on five-story Statistics House began late last year, with the building having been unusable for over a year following the earthquakes. CentrePort, which owns Stats House, is still working on a decision about whether the nearby BNZ Harbour Quays office building, which is three times the size of Stats House, is economic to repair.

Financial information supplied by Precious 1400 says its food retailing assets have a book value of $25,000, but their estimated value is unknown. The company said it owes an estimated $32,904 to AW Finance, who are secured creditors, $14,000 to Inland Revenue as preferential creditors and an unknown amount to IRD as unsecured creditors, and $48,868 to its trade creditors, who are also unsecured.

Those creditors include popular Wellington bakeries Alamir and Arobake, Best Ugly Bagels, fruit and vegetable supplier Fresh Connection, juice company Mela, PS Foods and Randwick Meats, along with biodegradable packaging manufacturer Ecoware.

Habitual Fix is franchised by the Mad Group which also franchises the Mad Mex chain, and Mad Group is listed on the schedule of creditors owed. The Habitual chain has two other stores in Wellington.

(BusinessDesk)