Hi everyone. Hope you have a good day!

My dad owned a Sdn. Bhd. established since 1995 (converted from sole proprietor). Currently there are two board of directors in his company, one which is my dad and another director is my aunt.

The business is not working out anymore and they decided to shut down the operation by 31st of Jan, leaving the finance department for payment collection and debt repayment, is there any guideline or anyone who I can refer to for the process of voluntary winding up the Sdn. Bhd.? This is a small company consisting 5 full time worker with 1 active director and 1 sleeping partner (my aunt).

Current situation financially - there are still some cash in bank, outstanding payment from customer, debt from bank, debt from supplier. Besides, there's also GST to be paid by this month for 2015 last quarter (which will be paid within the next 2 week).

The company has been operating at a loss for few years and I don't think this year account is making any profit as well so I think federal taxes should be filed as loss. (Therefore no debt with federal taxes).

Currently no salary owed to our employee, aside from this final month of operation where their salary will be paid on the last day of their work.

I have googled and researched, most of the websites are using striking off as the method to shut down the company (by letting the company inactive for a while), is there any difference/advantage from this method? As far as I know striking off is cheaper than voluntary winding up if I'm not mistaken.

Besides, what is the proper SOP for this wind up process? Should I look for my accountant or lawyer first or should I sell everything and clear all the debt before contacting anyone?

So far as per estimation I think we will be able to collect our outstanding payment and pay all our outstanding debt if the asset price is as expectation, otherwise there might be not enough money to pay our supplier debt (some bad debt has been dragged for years and they had put us into bad debt list).

Besides, due to our plan of closure, the company license has not been renewed yet, probably expiring next month, do we need to renew it before striking it off? Trying to save some money here if possible as the renewal will cost roughly 1k+.

Thanks in advance for all the advice!

TL;DR: Winding up Sdn. Bhd, what/who should I do or look for?

Thanks for the reply! Should we look for them after we sell things we could sell and repay all the debt first or let them to handle? Coz I'm afraid liquidator might lelong our machinery and under quote our machine price and end up we got not enough money for debt repayment.

An engineering company, having some heavy machinery such as lathe and milling. Due to the company does not own any land/factory, which translate that keeping all the machinery until it is fully sold will incur more and more expenses on rental bills.

Looking at all the response above most likely we will try to sell all the assets, collect all outstanding payment and clear all the debt first before proceed with our accountant and liquidator.

Besides, is appointing a liquidator compulsory in dissolving the company? Since by the end of the day if we were to clear all the debt and no more assets available other than cash, there is no real point in appointing a liquidator right? Correct me if I'm wrong.