Former GrabOne owner Global Marketplace New Zealand went into liquidation in October last year.
Once worth $17.5 million, popular e-commerce deal platform GrabOne’s business and assets fetched a little over $1.2m after being sold by liquidators, according to documents.
Former owner Global Marketplace New Zealand went into liquidation in October, leaving creditors more than $13.5m out of pocket.
GrabOne was snapped up months later by Wellington-based Paradigm Group, which has since relaunched the daily deals platform.
In the latest liquidators’ report into Global Marketplace New Zealand, Daniel Stoneman and Neale Jackson of Calibre Partners said the sales process attracted several non-binding indicative offers.
The liquidators said “exclusive negotiations were entered into with one party” and a sale and purchase agreement was executed on December 24, 2025, with completion occurring on January 30, 2026.
The Herald reported in March that GrabOne’s new owners were preparing to relaunch the business.
At the time, Paradigm Group chief executive Jonty Hodge said GrabOne was “definitely something worth saving”.
“It’s a really well-known, iconic brand,” Hodge said.
“At the end of the day, it was about how we can bring it back to life and bring it back to its roots.
“We have quite a large taskforce across the relaunch, and we do want to invest heavily into it, particularly from a tech perspective and the offering that we provide.”
New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), publishers of the New Zealand Herald, sold GrabOne in 2021 to Global Marketplace New Zealand for $17.5m.
GrabOne was founded in 2010 as a 50/50 venture between IdeaHQ – controlled by entrepreneur Shane Bradley – and then Herald publisher APN.
APN progressively bought out Bradley’s stake, taking full control in 2013 in a deal worth up to $12.2m.
Creditors facing big shortfall
Stoneman and Jackson said a distribution of $990,000 had been made to secured creditors in their recent report, leaving an outstanding claim of $2.3m.
The report said an outstanding balance of $338,000 was owed to Inland Revenue per the company’s records, however, no claims had been received from the tax agency.
Unsecured creditors are owed $10.5m, with no distributions made so far.
The liquidators’ remuneration has so far totalled $168,559.
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