TranZact, the Cape-based e-commerce gateway provider, has gone into provisional liquidation. Company MD Peter Ford confirms that the order of court was issued on 20 June, but declined to comment further, saying only that the liquidation was brought about by the non-payment of R3 million from "a substantial debtor".
"It put us in a difficult cash position, and we elected to close down to protect our other creditors."
Sixteen people have been retrenched from the company. The liquidation will be facilitated by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
TranZact was involved in an e-commerce venture with Engen Petroleum, which entailed rolling out self-service kiosks to Engen`s 400-strong Quick Shop branches. The deal was expected to be worth R4 billion over a period of five years, and was initiated in March 2000.
National Data Systems (NDS), the supplier of the kiosks, has already begun recovering its units, according to Kevin Choveaux, divisional GM, Financial Solutions Group, NDS.
The initial agreement was for NDS to supply TranZact with the first set of 25 kiosks. The revenue generated through those was to fund the second round of installation, which was expected to have been in the region of about 70 kiosks.
By the time a total of 50 kiosks had been installed, Choveaux says, TranZact hadn`t yet supplied letters of guarantee of payment that had been agreed on in the beginning. NDS then put a hold on the install process, and two months ago, began recovering its units at its own cost.
Engen communications manager Barbara Manson says Engen is likely to continue with its e-commerce initiatives at its Quick Shops despite the setback with the TranZact contract.
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