A SUNSHINE Coast company established to help businesses prosper has gone into liquidation.

Enact International, a small and medium-size enterprise development company based at the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Innovation Centre, was voluntarily placed in the hands of liquidator SV Partners last Wednesday.

By the time of its collapse, it had grown into a national network of 22 franchises trading as Enact Business Architects.

Three of the franchises were on the Coast, and all the franchisees have proven business pedigrees.

Some franchisees have accused Enact managing director-chief executive Trevor Holmes and fellow director Keith Grisman, a prominent Coast developer and real estate entrepreneur, of not heeding their advice as the company teetered on the edge of collapse.

Mr Holmes countered by claiming Enact was solvent, but was forced into liquidation because a small group of franchisees owed it $600,000.

He said the company owed creditors only $20,000.

In a last-ditch attempt to save Enact, Mr Holmes met with franchisees last Monday but his request for an unconditional pledge to pay monthly fees owed to the firm was rebuffed by enough to seal its fate.

Some of the franchisees stopped paying the monthly fee, claiming they had become disillusioned with the way the business was being run.

They said they stopped paying fees because Enact did not deliver on promised business leads.

Another franchisee, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “The situation and company affairs were completely mismanaged by Trevor Holmes (while) Keith Grisman should have known better.”

Mr Holmes denied Enact had been mismanaged.

“It literally is a crying shame that a small group of non-performers could bring us down like this and affect so many good people,” he said.

Three Enact staff have lost their jobs, but Mr Holmes said all entitlements had been paid.

Mr Grisman said while he was a director of Enact, he was not involved in its operation and had lost a “substantial” amount of money himself as an investor in the company.