CEO hopeful BC3 Thoroughbreds can be saved

Friday 13 December 2013, 6:29pm

Chief executive of the embattled BC3 Thoroughbreds, Craig Cameron, says he hopes the company can be salvaged.

BC3 Thoroughbreds is now in voluntary administration after a dramatic week in which chairman Bill Vlahos resigned his position amid court action over money missing from a collapsed punters' club.

Vlahos was reported to have been assaulted at his Victorian property at Connewarre on Sunday night where a vehicle containing his laptop was torched.

Former AFL administrator Cameron joined BC3 in March this year and told Melbourne radio station RSN the company wasn't running profitably at the time and Vlahos had wanted him to look at the business model and make BC3 a more profitable business.

"By the time I got there the horses for this year had already been bought and some of them had been sold down. It takes a little while to restructure it because obviously we make our money by buying and selling horses," Cameron said.

"It seemed as though we were in a good position going forward but obviously with what's occurred at the moment, it makes things a bit more difficult."

Cameron described the past week as "very difficult" and said it was too early to suggest there was light at the end of the tunnel for BC3.

He said he was working with administrators who are now in charge of the business.

"I'm actively involved in trying to resurrect the business with them and see what there might be to salvage," Cameron said.

Cameron confirmed he and Simon Marshall from BC3 went to the United States in September to look at a property with a view to expanding the business.

The administrators' first meeting with creditors will be held next Thursday.

Earlier this week, auction house William Inglis & Son relocated eight horses that had not been fully paid for amid concerns for their welfare.

Among the horses Inglis has a financial interest in is the two-year-old half-brother to Black Caviar who was knocked down to BC3 in April for $5 million.

The colt has been in a veterinary clinic since last month being treated for the life-threatening hoof disease laminitis.

Cameron said he had been concerned earlier this year that some of the horses has not been paid for but was told it had not been a problem in the past.

"Obviously we hadn't paid out some of the auction houses on some of the horses and it had been presented to me in the past that it had never been a real issue for the company," Cameron said.

– AAP

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