Melbourne businessman submits bid to buy failed building giant Porter Davis

A Melbourne businessman has submitted a late rescue bid to buy failed construction giant Porter Davis.

Amit Miglani said he is aiming to complete all 1700 unfinished homes if his eleventh hour deal gets accepted by Grant Thornton, the appointed liquidator for Porter Davis.

The country’s 12th largest home builder suddenly halted work on 1700 homes in Victoria and Queensland on March 31 after it collapsed into an estimated $20 million funding hole.

Hundreds of other customers are deeply concerned they have lost their entire deposits after signing contracts for homes which are yet to get underway.

Backed by a conglomerate of investors, Miglani said his offer, made by his company MIG and Sons, is currently under review.

Miglani said his offer would entail “buying the whole (Porter Davis) business, keeping all the jobs, keeping all the subcontractors”.

He said the goal would be to finish all unbuilt homes, including those who had signed contracts and were waiting for work to start.

Miglani claimed to have been in discussions with other building companies who could help step up to finish work, but he also indicated that management at Porter Davis should be kept on.

“Keeping them alive, that’s probably the best bet at the moment,” he said.

Magistrate Tara Hartnett described Miglani’s offending at the time as “serious” and indicated his guilty plea had likely spared him time behind bars.

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Miglani said his motivation to act now on the Porter Davis deal was because the company was “one of the biggest assets” in the country and “I really feel that it should be saved”.

“The community is the one who’s going to suffer at the end of the day,” he said.

“There’ll be a lot of losses, there’ll be a lot of life savings gone.”

Devastated customers were padlocking fences and installing security cameras to ensure their new homes weren’t targeted.

A spokesperson for liquidator Grant Thornton said an “extremely challenging environment” had directly contributed to Porter Davis’ collapse.

They also blamed “rising input costs, supply chain delays, labour shortages, and a drop in demand for new homes in 2023” for impacting liquidity.

At the time of collapse, Porter Davis had around 470 employees and many subcontractors on its sites.

The construction sector hit severe headwinds during the pandemic, and at least 20 building companies folded in 2022.