This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Digital Top Stories
CEO of struggling Guvera stands down
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 25 July 2016
Just ask Crowdmix, when one of you co-founders gives up the post of CEO, leaving the job to another co-founder, that means things are going really well. Really, really, really well. Really, really, really, really, really, really, really, well. So fucking well, in fact, you couldn’t even picture just how well things are going. Unless you had a really deep well.
Anyway, Guvera co-founder Darren Heft has stood down as CEO. His co-founder – and the flagging streaming firm’s new Chief Exec – Claes Loberg confirmed this development to The Courier-Mail late last week, adding that Heft will remain on the company’s board.
Said Loberg: “I am stepping in to the role of CEO. Darren will still have a seat on the board and work with us going forward. My focus as CEO will be to further develop our platform in our top markets including India and Indonesia, as well as my current research into China”.
Heft’s departure follows the decision to put two of Guvera’s subsidiaries into administration, after the Australian Securities Exchange blocked the loss-making streaming set up’s plans to float.
Given the figures Guvera that shared as part of its failed attempt to IPO, there has been much speculation about the future of the company, which maintains that there is a gap in the market to be the ad-funded free-to-access streaming platform, even though no one – market-leaders Spotify and Pandora included – have managed to make free streams pay.
Confirmation that Heft had stood down emerged alongside other reports, also in The Courier-Mail, to the effect that creditors of the two defunct Guvera companies could see just 10-25 cents for each dollar they are owed.
The tabloid adds that a report by administrators Deloitte says the streaming firm may have been insolvent back in 2014, and that directors, including Heft and Loberg, “possibly contravened the Corporations Act by ‘not acting with the standard of care and diligence required or in good faith by using their position and information'”.
None of which will help calm speculation about the insecure future of the wider Guvera business, however many YouTube videos get posted.
