ASX stocks in voluntary administration: Here are 4 that have bitten the dust recently

There are a number of ASX stocks in voluntary administration right now. For varying reasons, the utopia promised by company’s management team doesn’t always eventuate and plans to get it there just don’t work out.

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When you have ASX stocks in voluntary administration what happens?

When a company enters voluntary administration, its stocks are often suspended from trading on the stock exchange to prevent erratic price movements and protect investors while the company’s future is determined. This suspension also allows the appointed administrators to assess the company’s financial position and explore options for the company’s survival or the best return to creditors without the added pressure of stock market volatility.

Sometimes, companies emerge from voluntary administration with a new management team that will have a better chance of delivering it to the promised land (albeit sometimes a different one to the previous management’s visions). On other occasions, what might eventuate is a reverse takeover, where a private company will buy the ‘shell’ and use it to list on the ASX, it being easier than a conventional IPO. Unfortunately, there are other times when a new direction cannot be found, and the company just delists.

With that explanation out of the way, here are 4 stocks in that limbo right now.

4 ASX stocks in voluntary administration

Top Shelf International

TSI was Melbourne-based spirits producer and marketer known for brands like NED Australian Whisky, Grainshaker Vodka and Act of Treason agave spirit. The business struggled financially despite multiple strategic moves, including selling its Campbellfield production facility to address tax debts and launching capital raises to fund restructuring. Mounting losses, an inability to stem cash outflows and difficult trading conditions led the board to appoint voluntary administrators in August 2025.

The administrators are exploring options for a sale or recapitalisation of the business’s operating subsidiaries while the holding company faces potential liquidation. Four entities in the group entered administration and trading remains suspended. Secured lenders have proposed restructuring deals; if approved by creditors, those deals would see secured creditors take control and employees paid, but unsecured creditors and shareholders would likely be wiped out. The future of Top Shelf’s brands now depends on whether a sale or recapitalisation plan is approved; without that, the holding company will likely be wound up.

Bowen Coking Coal (ASX:BCB)

BCB is a Queensland-based metallurgical (coking) coal producer operating assets including the Burton Coal Complex in the Bowen Basin. The company historically faced a tough operating environment with falling global coal prices, high operating costs, and notably high state government royalty rates that squeezed margins. Payment demands from a former contractor, a rejected request to defer royalty payments and an inability to secure new capital forced the board to appoint voluntary administrators in July 2025. Administrators also saw receivers appointed over some entities by secured lenders shortly after.

Bowen’s administrators are working to keep operations running “business as usual” while seeking a sale or recapitalisation. Jobs have been at risk and creditors are meeting to decide on next steps, which could include asset sales or restructuring. As of early 2026, operations continue under the administrators with potential sale or recapitalisation prospects the key focus, but the outcome is still uncertain and the company remains under administration/receivership.

Mineral Commodities (ASX:MRC)

MRC has been suspended since August 2024 but only entered administration last month. The reason was an inability to sell its Skaland Graphite Project on Senja Island in Northern Norway. Skaland was strategically valuable because graphite is a critical input for battery anodes in electric vehicles and energy storage, and Skaland’s past production and resource profile positioned it as a potentially profitable, long-term asset.

By December 2024, MRC had signed a binding but conditional sale agreement to divest 100 % of Skaland to Norway-based Norge Mineraler Holding AS. The strategic idea was to streamline MRC’s business and strengthen its balance sheet: the company planned to use the sale proceeds to reduce liabilities and shift focus toward other assets, like the Munglinup graphite project in Western Australia and downstream value-addition projects.

But the buyer failed to make the final payment and the sale was terminated. Compounding this were ongoing issues at its other operations — notably operational disruptions and suspension at its Tormin project after a maritime incident and flooding, with the business placed into care and maintenance, and the resulting need for insurance resolution. These financial strains left MRC unable to fund ongoing operations and obligations

Pro-Pac Packaging

Pro-Pac is a Melbourne-based industrial packaging manufacturer and supplier. It supplied bespoke flexible, industrial and specialty packaging solutions to a broad set of customers in sectors such as food and beverage, agriculture, health and industrial goods, with both domestic and some international customers. The company’s voluntary administration appointment in late October 2025 was the culmination of prolonged financial pressure and unsuccessful attempts to stabilise its balance sheet.

The core reasons the company went into administration include a trend of declining revenue and widening losses, which were clearly evident in the company’s 2025 half-year results. Revenues at that time fell around 10 % compared with the prior year period, while pre-tax losses widened materially. Part of that shortfall was attributed to a major Middle Eastern customer reducing or cancelling orders, which left a revenue gap of about $13.6 million, and there were broader operational headwinds such as adverse foreign exchange impacts and competitive market conditions. These factors undermined cash flow and profitability, ultimately making refinancing or recapitalisation increasingly difficult.

Prior to the formal administration appointment, the board had engaged in a strategic review and sought potential buyers or investors, but by late August 2025 these discussions had not produced a transaction “at an acceptable level of certainty.” A secured loan from major shareholder Bennamon Pty Ltd (backed by billionaire Raphael Geminder) was extended to the business in August 2025 in an attempt to provide additional liquidity, but it was insufficient to reverse the deteriorating financial position.

ASX stocks that exited voluntary administration in 2025: The takeaway lesson

As part of the process we went through, we found plenty of stocks that entered voluntary administration and exited it in 2025. There were plenty including Rex (ASX:REX), Mosaic Brands (ASX:MOZ), Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM), Site Group (ASX:SIT), Toys R’Us (ASX:TOY), Centrex (ASX:CXM) and Bluechiip (ASX:BCT) but all of these either couldn’t find a future or were ‘privitised’. Rex was the most noteworthy of these given it was in administration for more than a year and some speculated it’d never find a buyer.

What we can learn

Once an ASX-listed company enters voluntary administration, the probability that it will both survive and remain listed is very low. Even when the underlying business survives in some form, the listed entity almost always does not. What usually happens is that the operating assets are sold out of administration to a buyer (often a private equity firm, trade buyer, or secured creditor), while the listed shell is left behind with too much debt, litigation risk, or structural damage to ever be reinstated to trading. That shell is then liquidated or delisted.

There are a few structural reasons for this. First, administrations are almost always triggered by balance sheet failure, not just temporary operating weakness. By the time administrators are appointed, equity is typically already economically worthless. Any recapitalisation that saves the business usually requires converting debt to equity or injecting new capital at a valuation that wipes out existing shareholders. New investors have little incentive to keep a public listing when they can acquire assets more cheaply and cleanly in private hands.

Second, ASX listing requirements are unforgiving post-administration. To relist, a company must lodge up-to-date audited accounts, satisfy minimum asset and shareholder spread requirements, and convince ASX it has a viable business going forward. Administrators are focused on maximising creditor returns, not preserving a listing, and the cost, time and uncertainty of restoring compliance often outweigh any perceived benefit of staying public.

Third, in most of the cases you’ve discussed (Mosaic, Site Group, Entyr, Pro-Pac, Top Shelf, Bowen Coking Coal, MRC), the value resides in specific assets or brands, not in the corporate wrapper. Buyers want the mines, plants, contracts, brands, or licences — not the legacy liabilities, class action risk, continuous disclosure exposure, or shareholder register that comes with an ASX shell.

That’s why survival usually looks like this: administrators sell the assets to a private buyer or creditor group; employees and operations may continue; creditors recover something; shareholders get wiped out; the ASX-listed entity is delisted and eventually liquidated. From the outside it can look like the company “survived”, but legally and economically it is a different company.

There are rare exceptions where a company emerges from administration and remains listed, but these almost always involve large, strategically important businesses with strong underlying cash flow and supportive lenders, or situations where administration was used very early as a balance-sheet reset rather than as a last resort. None of the stocks you’ve mentioned fit that profile.

Finally, we’d note Australia’s laws are different to America’s and contribute to why the rate of companies successfully exiting voluntary administration is a lot lower. We’ve written more on that topic here.

Bottom line

So to make a long story short if an ASX company enters voluntary administration, it is more likely than not that any surviving business will end up private, and the listed entity will disappear. Survival and continued ASX listing is the exception, not the rule.

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