Sydney - Australia's cash-strapped ABC Learning Centres Ltd called in the receivers Thursday after banks it owed 1.3 billion Australian dollars (910 million US dollars) called in their loans.
ABC, founded by South African-born Eddy Groves, was the world's biggest provider of child care before incurring so much debt in a global expansion programme that it was marked out long ago as a likely casualty of the current credit crisis.
Groves, who last month severed his links with ABC, was forced by margin calls to sell all his holdings. Some of the shares he unloaded were picked up by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, now the biggest investor in the crippled company.