Administrators for the collapsed whitegoods supplier Kleenmaid have recommended putting the company into liquidation.

The Queensland company, which once had 20 outlets across Australia, went into voluntary administration last month.

Founded by a washing machine repairman 25 years ago, the company has been found to have debts in excess of $100 million.

Joint administrator John Greig from Deloitte says no creditors - including former employees, customers, suppliers or banks - are likely to get their money back.

Mr Greig says 4,500 customers have been left in the lurch.

"We consider that the Kleenmaid group has been insolvent from around about June 2007, if not earlier," he told ABC Radio's The World Today.

"Unfortunately, the outcome for creditors is likely to be particularly bleak in the sense that we are estimating that there will be no funds or any dividend available to creditors of any kind in across the whole Kleenmaid group."

He says Deloitte has not received any proposal for a deed of company arrangement from the directors.

"That being the case, we can only recommend and have recommended that the companies in the group should be wound up at the forthcoming creditors meeting in Brisbane next Monday," he said.

He says the company's level of debt is far worse than first thought.

"Initially in the few days after our appointment, we were indicating that the creditor position was in the order of $70 million to $80 million," he said.

"We have now found that it is slightly in excess of $100 million."

Millions owed

The collapsed Sunshine Coast company, owned by brothers Andrew and Bradley Young, now owes customers a total of $27 million for deposits made on kitchen appliances they never received.

Major creditors, primarily Westpac, are owed $29 million.

Suppliers in places including the United States and Europe are owed $16 million.

A total of 150 former Kleenmaid employees are also out of work and out of pocket to the tune of $3 million.

Mr Greig says it is thought the company has been trading while insolvent for quite some time.

"Whilst our investigations have been exhaustive, as administrators it is only preliminary in the time that we have had to do it," he said.

"There is much further work that a liquidator would do if appointed at this second meeting, but certainly what we have seen is obviously from a balance sheet point of view, this substantial deficiency of $82 million which is, as I said, that deficiency has been around for some time.

"It was also stress from creditor demands and so on that go back to that period as well. So there are some of the issues that we have identified in our investigations."

Consequences

He says the Young brothers could face serious consequences if it is proven the company traded during insolvency.

"Potentially what can happen is that they can be held to be personally liable themselves for the debts of the group that were incurred during that period of insolvent trading," he said.

"That is the one outcome, and if the issue is considered to be serious enough by the regulators, meaning ASIC, then there could also be criminal prosecutions in relation to insolvent trading."