Pharmacy Daily | Administrators called

BK CHEMISTS Pty Limited, the company which operates the Pharmacy4Less online store, has been placed into administration.

ASIC records confirm the company, whose sole director and shareholder is Pharmacy4Less GM of eCommerce, Billal Karem, had Michael Billingsley and Lucica Palaghia of accounting firm Deloitte appointed as External Administrators on 10 Feb.

The appointment was pursuant to Section 463A of the Corporations Act, which states that the board of a company may appoint an administrator if they have passed a resolution to the affect that they believe the company is insolvent, or is likely to become insolvent.

A second business, BK Chemists No2 Pty Ltd, which was listed as the proprietor of a Priceline Pharmacy at Chatswood Interchange, on Sydney's North Shore, of which Billal Karem was listed as the sole director, also entered administration on Mon.

Billal Karem and his brothers, Feras Karem and Assad Karem, are behind the Pharmacy4Less group, which has over 100 stores Australia-wide, according to the company's website.

Feras Karem is also Treasurer of the NSW Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, and the family's other ventures include BAMM Group Administration, which last year did a major "technology co-development" deal with listed pharmacy software supplier Corum Group Limited (PD 25 Sep 2019).

The decision to place the two entities into administration came less than three weeks after Australian Pharmaceutical Industries' CEO, Richard Vincent, had told investors that a number of its Priceline stores had been forced out of business due to "landlords' rental demands" (PD 24 Jan).