The Australian Tax Office has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to wind up Captivant Pty Ltd over a $500,000 tax debt.

Three of the four shareholders of the Company as of June of this year were Matt Manalis, the Chairman of CEDIA’s Certification Commission, Regan Webb who was recently flow to the USA by CEDIA to get an award and Brendan Cousemacker, all three of whom operate Brisbane based custom install Company ExperienceONE. Mr Webb seen above is the sole director of Captivant.

The trio have a track record of being involved in custom install and CEDIA linked businesses that have been placed into liquidation with questions raised in the past about their business practises.

ChannelNews has recently been told that Cousemacker has walked away from being linked with Webb and Manalis, we also understand that Winnings also walked away from being involved with the Company. (Manalis is seen below).

Manalis and Cousemacker were directors and shareholders, and Webb a shareholder, of the company BMR Group. That company was placed into voluntary liquidation in 2022 owing $1,653,864 to creditors with $1,403,592 of that debt owed to the ATO.

In addition, Manalis, Cousemacker and Webb were all directors (Webb only for a matter of months) and shareholders of the company Digital Residence Pty Ltd. That company was wound up by the ATO in 2018 over a tax debt, with over $800,000 owed to creditors at the time of liquidation.

Inklings that Captivant was in trouble was first revealed to ChannelNews when we obtained a CreditWatch report back in March 2024 that revealed that the Trustees for Captivant Unit Trust already owed the ATO over $400,000.

Last month, Manalis withdrew action against 4Square Media, the publisher of ChannelNews, in the Queensland Supreme Court over a previous ChannelNews story titled ‘CEDIA Award ExperienceONE Executive With ‘Top Award’ Despite Dodgy History in Industry”.

ChannelNews understands that Brendan Cousemacker seen here recently qiite his involvement with Captivant, Webb and Manalis.

Lawyers acting for Manalis claimed the story damaged his reputation.

The night before the case was due in Court the matter was discontinued by Manalis, who has since paid 4Square’s costs.

According to the Credit Watch Report the entity Captivant Unit Trust was a “highly vulnerable business”.

Despite this several suppliers to the custom install industry kept on supplying them.

CreditWatch suggested ‘COD trading highly recommended”.

The entity was given a DI rating which is described as “Risk of default or insolvency is significantly higher than the average for Australia businesses”.
When the assessment was prepared the business already had debts in the tens of thousands with suppliers.

The liquidator of BMR Group raised several issues with the activities of that company.

According to a liquidator’s report, BMR Group ceased trading one day prior to the incorporation of Captivant.

That liquidator went on to raise questions in his report about the overnight transfer of assets, money and custom install contracts from BMR Group to Captivant. Those transactions, according to the Report, were made for no consideration and therefore were, according to the liquidator, voidable transactions.

The directors of BMR Group claimed at the time that the business was affected by the Brisbane flood.

The liquidator’s view in his report was that there may be other factors that caused the business to fail, including that the business “had no way of repaying” its ATO debt of more than $1.4 million.

The liquidator also considered that a disaster grant in the amount of $35,000 to BMR Group was applied for the benefit of the directors (Manalis and Cousemacker), rather than the company, and therefore constituted a misapplication of funds.