Corporate recovery accountants Clifton Hall have been appointed as liquidators of the Glynde company, which has 14 projects across Adelaide worth tens of millions of dollars on its books.
It is understood Tagara employs about 50 people who have lost their jobs, but CFMEU state secretary Aaron Cartledge said hundreds more contractors would be affected.
Liquidator Timothy Clifton said that while shuttering the business was disappointing, there was no other immediate option given the financial position it was in.
He said the liquidators would be “conducting an urgent assessment of Tagara’s current projects and an update will be provided to employees and other affected parties as soon as possible’’.
The Advertiser today reported that contractors were walking off the job after the company failed to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for work on the $22 million Murray Bridge shopping complex expansion.
Tagara’s website says it currently has more than $70 million worth of projects on the go.
They include the $35 million New Mayfield House apartments in the city, Catholic Education’s $4 million Cardijn College, and the multimillion-dollar Cheltenham apartments development at St Clair.
The company was founded in 1992 by Tullio Tagliaferri and John Kassara, who remain the only directors.
The move to place the company into liquidation, rather than administration, indicates there are no prospects of it trading out of its current problems.
Some contractors on the Murray Bridge project told The Advertiser this week they were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Mr Cartledge said there was an urgent need for legislative reform to ensure that money was placed in trust for subcontractors to protect them when large companies they were working for failed.
“This is happening far too often in the building industry,’’ Mr Cartledge said.
“There needs to be some serious legislative reform in this space on how you prevent subcontractors from being burnt.
“It leads to a chain of events of other subcontractors having to close their doors because they now have a massive hole in their income.
“There’s going to be a domino effect from this.’’
On Thursday, after failing to get payment guarantees from the company, dozens of contractors recovered their equipment from the planned Murray Bridge complex for Coles, Target and other speciality stores, before power was cut to the site about 12.30pm.
Mr Tagliaferri also today resigned from his role as president of the Master Builders Association.
He could not be contacted.
Master Builders SA chief executive John Stokes said Metricon Homes general manager South Australia Richard Bryant had stepped in as acting president.
“Tagara has undertaken projects that have changed the face of Adelaide, helped by some of the industry’s best and most experienced subcontractors,’’ Mr Stokes said.
“So when a business fails, it’s a loss for the company, for the subcontractors, for the employees and their families.
“It also highlights the state of South Australia’s building, construction and property industry.
“This is a time to examine the changes that can be made — revenue-neutral in the case of Government — to make things easier for the builders and subcontractors that are dealing with the fallout.’’
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