One afternoon last October, the staff of rail maintenance company Trovon's New Zealand branch arrived at work to an unwelcome surprise.
The locks on the Upper Hutt workshop of the company that supplied components for HVAC air conditioning system, air compressors and brake units on Matangi trains used by Wellington's transport system operator Metlink had been changed.
Team leader Mohammed Shameel said he called the landlord, to be told his employer owed months of rent. Instructions from the head office in Australia were direct: go home and wait. The company's director John Marinos had called in Australian administrators on 7 October, but the Wellington-based workers were not terminated until early November.
Months later and despite Trovon already being wound up in Australia, its New Zealand arm that employed 10 people remains a registered New Zealand company. Staff are yet to see a cent for their last weeks of work.
Shameel said he was left $16,000 out of pocket, including four weeks' pay and reimbursements for company items he paid for with his own money.
Mechanical engineer Baljeet Singh was waiting for four weeks' wages and a month's worth of annual leave. Quality assurance engineer Navid Pour hadn't been paid for two months.
Malaysian engineering solutions firm Destini acquired Trovon for A$100 million in December 2024, absorbing A$3.25m of debt, saying it valued Trovon's technical capability, certifications and strong global business despite its A$4.81m loss at the previous financial year.
The publicly listed firm, based in the Malaysian state of Selangor, did not respond to Local Democracy Reporting's questions.
Trovon's Sydney-based administrators told the staff they were unable to claim outstanding entitlements because the issue was in New Zealand and they should wait until a New Zealand liquidator was appointed. An official from the Ministry, Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said they couldn't help because Trovon had no New Zealand assets.
"The first priority should be paying the employees," Singh said.
The fallout from Trovon's collapse continues. One worker has a new baby and now has to work nights to put food on the table. Others dipped into overdrafts for mortgages.
"I try to help them if I can," Shameel said. "But unfortunately, my situation was changing as well, so I was unable to help them a lot."
Marinos, who remains listed as Trovon New Zealand's sole director in the Companies Register, told Local Democracy Reporting he was "deeply sorry" and the situation "weighs heavily on me". He was not unscathed in Trovon's collapse, having also lost his job and also being owed wages by Destini, calling it "one of the most difficult periods of my professional life".
"I was appointed to lead the operating companies locally but the funding decisions sat with our parent company," Marinos said. "When the expected financial support did not arrive, the business ran out of working capital very quickly. This is what led to payroll not being met.
"I am deeply sorry that employees are caught in the middle of this. This is not the outcome anyone wanted. I genuinely regret the impact this has had on people who worked hard and gave their best."
A spokesperson from the Greater Wellington Regional Council that runs Metlink, said it had nothing to add.
Officials previously said it would need to pull 11 Matangi trains out of the active fleet because Trovon's collapse affected their planned maintenance. They said this would not affect scheduled timetables and expected the regular maintenance schedule would resume in August.
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