From Investor to Expo Chief: Inside the Collapse and Return of the Australian Tattoo Expo

Frankie Ngo registered Wealth Gate Investments Pty Ltd in January 2017, aged 23. Less than three years later, liquidator Riad Tayeh published an ASIC notice inviting creditors to lodge claims. ASIC records show that in the preceding five weeks Ngo resigned as director and secretary, was reappointed 12 days later, then resigned again after another 16 days.

According to the ASIC personal-name extract reviewed by NOFUF, Wealth Gate was the first of 19 companies in which Ngo, now 33, had held office. Of those companies, six had entered liquidation, five had been deregistered and eight remained registered. Most of the active companies list the same Cumberland Street unit in Cabramatta.

The largest liquidation involved five exhibition companies wound up by the Supreme Court of Victoria in October 2024 on the application of Ngo and his investment vehicle. The group included the operator of the Australian Tattoo Expo, a national event founded 10 years before Ngo became involved. Ngo had been a director for less than eight months when, according to legal documents supplied to NOFUF, the court ordered the companies wound up.

A February 2026 UAE Stories profile credited Frankie Ngo with building Australia's largest tattoo expo. He now describes himself in correspondence and on social media as the expo's chief executive and director. The profile story and PlanX promotional material also present him as the founder of PlanX, a recently launched Dubai conference venture aimed at founders, investors and business operators, with a focus on building wealth.

NOFUF tested this written and public account against ASIC extracts, liquidation notices, Supreme Court orders and reasons, liquidator reports, correspondence and filed court material. It also reviewed documents and an account supplied by the expo's founder, Kevin Mack.

As the founder and former operator of the Australian Tattoo Expo and related events businesses, Mack was approached for his account of the period before and during Ngo's involvement. He provided documents, a chronology and responses to matters raised by company, court and liquidation records.

The companies

ASIC's personal-name extract records each company in which a person has held office and the relevant appointment and cessation dates. Ngo's record, ordered by first appointment, appears below. Trading names are drawn from the business names register where available.

• Wealth Gate Investments Pty Ltd (ACN 617 090 810). Director and secretary, 30 January 2017 to 15 August 2019; reappointed 27 August 2019; resigned 12 September 2019. Entered liquidation, September 2019. Deregistered.

• Dopa Bowls Pty Ltd (ACN 618 039 553). Director and secretary, 17 March 2017 to 29 July 2018. Deregistered.

• Sakie Pty Ltd (ACN 619 521 274). Director, 4 June 2017 to 20 October 2019. Deregistered.

• Conquer Outdoors Pty Ltd (ACN 623 404 991). Director, 13 December 2017 to 8 May 2022. Deregistered.

• Enomad Pty Ltd (ACN 626 041 807). Director, 9 May 2018 to 6 January 2021. Deregistered.

• True Road Pty Limited (ACN 632 110 082). Director and secretary since 7 March 2019. The vehicle through which Mr Ngo invested in the exhibition group and later applied to wind it up. Registered.

• Red Guan Pty Limited (ACN 632 137 252). Director and secretary since 8 March 2019. Registered.

• Cocoon Group Pty Ltd (ACN 626 182 590). Director and secretary since 13 March 2019. Registered.

• Huge Dreams Pty Ltd (ACN 654 100 231). Director since 29 September 2021. Registered.

• Outlast Capital Pty Ltd (ACN 654 097 677). Director since 29 September 2021. Registered.

• Sneaker Squad Pty Ltd (ACN 654 100 553). Director, 29 September 2021 to 15 September 2023. Registered.

• Thinking Larger Pty Ltd (ACN 654 100 348). Director since 29 September 2021. Registered.

• Holy Grail Dry Cleaners Pty Ltd (ACN 657 790 611). Trading as Laundree, New South Wales. Director since 4 March 2022. Registered.

• Australian Exhibition Group Pty Ltd (ACN 627 304 938). Director from 18 August 2023. Wound up by court order. Entered liquidation, 23 October 2024.

• Australian Tattoo Events Pty Ltd (ACN 627 395 902). The operating company of the Australian Tattoo Expo. Director from 18 August 2023. Wound up by court order. Entered liquidation, 23 October 2024.

• Common Media Group Pty Ltd (ACN 652 674 792). Director from 18 August 2023. Wound up by court order. Entered liquidation, 23 October 2024.

• Mack Holdings (Aust) Pty Ltd (ACN 666 231 296). Director from 18 August 2023. Wound up by court order. Entered liquidation, 23 October 2024.

• Megacon Pty Ltd (ACN 665 765 462). Director from 18 August 2023. Wound up by court order. Entered liquidation, 23 October 2024.

• Creatorcon Pty Ltd (ACN 671 872 094). Director and secretary from 3 October 2023. Deregistered 24 May 2026. Deregistered.

• Uncharted Group Pty Ltd (ACN 683 750 530, ABN 43 683 750 530). Registered 17 January 2025, Carlton, Victoria. Sells tickets to the Australian Tattoo Expo through Eventbrite as "UNCHARTED GROUP" and lists the expo and the Rites of Passage Festival as its brands. Registered.

• Unchartered Global – FZCO. A United Arab Emirates free-zone company, IFZA Business Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis. Named on planxconf.com as the entity that controls the site and its data. PlanX tickets are sold through the Tito platform under the account "planx". Registered.

A career the register does not show

UAE Stories portrays Ngo's career as a progression from retail and e-commerce into hospitality during the Covid-19 lockdowns, then events as restrictions eased.

The ASIC record does not reflect that sequence. Dopa Bowls Pty Ltd and Sakie Pty Ltd were incorporated in 2017 and had ceased by October 2019, five months before Australia's first national lockdown.

From March 2020 to September 2021, the period in which the UAE Stories article places Ngo's move into hospitality, the extract reviewed by NOFUF records no new appointment. On the 29th September 2021, he became director of four companies in a single day: Huge Dreams, Outlast Capital, Sneaker Squad and Thinking Larger. Holy Grail Dry Cleaners, trading as Laundree, followed in March 2022. Their registered details do not identify any as an events business.

The man who built it

The Australian Tattoo Expo was already an established national event when Ngo became involved. Its founder's history in tattooing and events predated Ngo's appointment by more than a decade.

Mack says he worked as a tattooist at Full Moon Tattoo Studio in Prahran in 2011 and 2012. In 2013 he founded online retailer Tatsup, which he says turned over more than $1 million in its first year and won the Shopify Global Build a Business Competition in 2014. That year he took over the Rites of Passage Tattoo Festival at Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building after its original operator ran the event once. In 2015, through a joint venture with Exhibitions and Events Australia, Mack acquired the Australian Tattoo Expo under vendor finance. He later bought the tattoo portfolio from joint-venture principals Jane Ford and Graham Uthmayer.

Over the next decade, the expo became one of Australia's largest events of its kind. Mack says attendance rose by more than 40 per cent under his directorship. The group nearly failed during the pandemic. In 2022 he told Onya Magazine that he sold every asset he could to keep it trading. Its first post-Covid show, held in Sydney in April 2022, sold out.

Mack acquired Sexpo Australia in 2019, modernising the event and adding Babylon Live, which became a signature attraction. The event achieved phenomenal success. In 2022, after the pandemic exposed the volatility of live events, he launched the Common Media agency through Common Media Group Pty Ltd.

By 2023, the group says it was staging more than 15 exhibitions a year, including the Australian Tattoo Expo, Rites of Passage and Sexpo, operating a media agency and drawing more than 100,000 attendees annually.

A silent investor who asked to run the books

Mack stated that Ngo approached him in early 2023, although the men had not previously met, and proposed investing as a silent partner. According to Mack, Ngo then undertook close to six months of due diligence before investing, with access from March 2023 to a decade of the group's trading records. On the 18th August 2023, Ngo became a director of all five companies and True Road acquired a 49 per cent shareholding. The transaction was completed in September. Mack says the appointment was non-executive and carried no operational role.

Mack says that within weeks of completion Ngo sought an operational role as head of finance, despite not appearing to hold an accounting or finance qualification. From September 2023 to March 2024, Ngo had access to the group's accounting system, payroll, banking, client records and sales data.

According to Mack, Ngo dismissed the existing head of finance, Peter S., and recruited Darren C., a chartered accountant with more than a decade of experience in financial management. Mack approved the appointment. Mack alleges that Ngo would frequently travel to Vietnam and the Middle East for weeks at a time without notice, during which payroll, venue payments and supplier invoices went unpaid. He says the external accountant was forced to step in and manage payroll and the companies' payables.

In March 2024, Ngo was asked to step down from the finance role and return to his non-executive seat. Mack says the incoming head of finance then began repairing the books.

The first bank-account restriction

Within weeks of that change, in May 2024 access to the group's Commonwealth Bank trading accounts was restricted. Mack says Ngo initiated the restriction and that he was given no warning.

In an email reviewed by NOFUF after the freeze, Ngo said he had been removed from a company Slack channel and that a staff member told an audiovisual supplier he no longer worked in the office. The email did not say he had lost access to the accounting system, customer database, ticketing platform, bank accounts or other administrative systems. Mack says that access remained. Ngo proposed taking sole control of the trading accounts, which was rejected by Mack. Then, days later, on the 27th of May, correspondence proposed winding up the companies.

Mack says he called Ngo more than 50 times. Rather than returning the calls, Ngo's solicitors instructed Mack not to contact him by phone or text. The directors of a group with nine scheduled shows and about $1.4 million in annual wages then communicated largely through lawyers. Mack says both directors were required to lift the bank hold, Ngo declined, and Mack met many of the group's expenses personally.

The accounts remained restricted for weeks on the first occasion, despite directions from the Supreme Court of Victoria. The documents record that the parties were directed by the Supreme Court of Victoria to undertake mediation and that the trading accounts were to be reinstated. Mack says Ngo met him once during that period because the meeting was required to reopen the accounts, and not otherwise. The accounts were restricted a second time by Ngo.

Mack made multiple written offers to buy out True Road's shareholding for its full investment, he says he received no response. Ngo's solicitors continued to push for the companies to be wound up, despite Mack's written offers to buy.

The grounds

The basis on which Ngo sought to end the companies appears to have shifted over time. Correspondence and court documents reviewed by NOFUF show at least four stated grounds between May and September 2024. He had been removed from a Slack channel and there were concerns about company funds during a period in which Ngo had held responsibility for the group's accounts, then that Ngo had been removed from an organisation chart and finally that the companies were trading while insolvent.

The final allegation relied on a solvency report commissioned by Mr Ngo. According to Mack, the period examined overlapped with the six months in which Mr Ngo was responsible for the group's finances and followed the due-diligence period in which he had access to a decade of accounts.

An insolvency finding could have carried consequences for every director. Under section 588G of the Corporations Act, a director may be personally exposed for debts incurred while a company trades insolvent, if the statutory requirements are not met. That potential exposure could have applied to any director during the relevant period, including Ngo. The court made no finding of insolvency, it ordered the companies wound up on the just and equitable ground.

Trading through it

On the 2nd August 2024, access to the group's trading accounts was restricted again. Mack says there was again no notice. The bank's status on the accounts during the period that followed was, in his words, "closed indefinitely".

The same day, Ngo and True Road applied in the Supreme Court of Victoria to wind up all five companies. ASIC's published notice names Frankie Ngo as plaintiff, Hope & Co Lawyers as his solicitors and the 23rd August 2024 as the first hearing date. The application relied on the "just and equitable" ground, which permits a court to wind up a company where, among other circumstances, shareholders can no longer work together.

The business continued trading. With its own accounts inaccessible and the winding-up application before the court, the group continued to stage the 3 events, Australian Tattoo Expo and Sexpo in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney. Payables & Revenue from those shows were routed through accounts held in Mack's name, he says, because they were the only accounts the group could use.

The liquidator's report later raised that routing. Mack's response is that the group's accounts had been restricted twice, that winding-up proceedings were then on foot, and that he believed he had no practical alternative if the Brisbane and Sydney and 6 shows to follow were to proceed.

Mack stated that once Ngo's solicitors confirmed only a winding-up would be accepted, he cancelled future payments from exhibitors, patrons and suppliers so the group would not collect money for shows that might never proceed.

By October 2024, Mack says he had sold his car and family assets such as art and furniture to pay barristers and was borrowing from his accountant for legal fees. On the 23rd October, the court wound up the companies. Richard Rohrt of Kennedy Ryan Advisory referred by Ngo's solicitors was appointed liquidator, and Ngo provided a $50,000 indemnity for the costs. Six scheduled shows were cancelled, two only a fortnight before opening.

After the orders

True Road returned to court in July 2025. In [2025] VSC 451, the Supreme Court extended the liquidator's powers to assets held by trusts behind Australian Exhibition Group and Australian Tattoo Events. It also declared the expo's decade-old Instagram account as trust property to be dealt with in the liquidation. Ngo funded the application. Mack stated that he later found out that his entity was served one day before the hearing. He was unrepresented and did not appear.

The liquidator's first statutory report on Common Media Group, the group's employing entity, dated the 22nd January 2025, records that attempts to contact Mack had been unsuccessful and that initial inquiries suggested he was no longer living in Australia.

Mack submits that he was then living in country Victoria, where he says he had moved in October 2024. He lodged his report as to his affairs with the liquidator on the 29th July 2025.

He says he responded to the liquidator that month at the address that the liquidator had previously sent to him. He received no reply, and then wrote to ASIC to record it. Mack also stated that during the liquidation the Optus account carrying his personal mobile number, which he had held for more than 25 years, was closed by the liquidator, leaving him unreachable on that number.

How the debts reached $3.8 million

The liquidator's reports to creditors put the combined debts of the five companies at $3.8 million.

The number requires context. The court did not find that the group was trading insolvent, and the orders that produced the liquidation were made on a ground that does not require insolvency.

In August 2023, the group was trading with a national schedule of future shows. Exhibitors and artists had paid deposits and in many cases full booth fees, Mack estimates more than $1 million. Tickets were sold, venues contracted and staff employed with annual entitlements he puts at about $1.4 million. Mack said that for an events business, much of that cash represented revenue received before the events were delivered.

Winding up converts those future obligations into immediate claims. Cancelled shows can generate refunds for exhibitors, artists and ticket-holders. Unperformed leases, venue agreements and multi-year supplier contracts become creditor claims. Employee termination crystallises leave, long-service leave and superannuation liabilities. Tax debts remain payable after trading revenue stops. The liabilities may not be new, but liquidation accelerates them against businesses no longer operating.

That is one way the deficiency of a business that had operated as a going concern can increase sharply after winding-up orders are made.

The liquidator's report on Common Media Group, the only one of the five reports obtained by NOFUF, illustrates the point. It puts that company's deficiency at $1.96 million. Of its $1.63 million in unsecured debt, $1.3 million is owed to other companies in the same group, entities wound up on the same day by the same order. Statutory creditors account for $291,000. Debts to unrelated creditors total $45,758. Priority employee claims are $323,834, including $132,099 in superannuation. The report estimates cash at bank on the day of the orders at $694, compared with $160,839 recorded in Ngo's statement of the company's position as at the 30th April 2024.

NOFUF has been unable to identify any passage in the liquidator's report that records either freezing of the group's trading accounts, or the fact that the Brisbane and Sydney shows were staged during the freeze and while winding-up proceedings were on foot. This article does not suggest any omission was deliberate. It notes only what the report, on NOFUF's reading, does not say.

Who wrote the record

A liquidator's report is a statutory document prepared by an independent officeholder. Rohrt's report is the only formal account of the group's collapse currently available, making the sources on which it relied materially important.

The report draws on correspondence with Ngo, his statement of the company's position at the 30th April 2024, documents he supplied including the court file, external accountant's records, Xero and bank data. It records Ngo's account that his access to company records ended around the 30th April because of the dispute with Mack. Mack disputes that account, saying Ngo had access to and responsibility for the financial records during the preceding six months. Court and liquidation records show that Ngo supported the liquidator's appointment through an indemnity and funded the July 2025 application to extend the liquidator's powers.

Mack, the group's founder and primary director, was unrepresented. In his statutory report as to affairs, lodged in July 2025, he answered several questions "unsure". He says he could not provide answers because he had been locked out of the accounting system and lacked the underlying data. Mack puts his unpaid accrued entitlements at about $60,000. As a director of a company in liquidation he is not covered by the employee protections that might otherwise apply.

The report raises several preliminary matters concerning Mack. It records a $189,994 loan account in his name that the liquidator stated remains undocumented and unreconciled. It also identifies payments to accounts apparently related to Mack that may constitute unreasonable director-related transactions, and other transactions involving Mack and a related entity that may be uncommercial.

The report says any insolvent-trading claim is too early to assess and would cost $70,000 to $100,000 to pursue. It also records that searches found no real assets in either director's name and attributes the company's failure to the directors' dispute, poor strategic management, poor record keeping and high cash use. No court has made findings against Mack and no proceedings have been brought against him.

Mack alleges that the report is one-sided and omits material context, including the account restrictions, continued trading, payroll, supplier and venue commitments, and the staging of large events. He also said the group owed him about $800,000 in director loans at the time of the winding up which if substantiated could make him its largest creditor. Those remain his allegations. NOFUF identified no adversarial process in which the report's preliminary claims were tested.

The liquidator

Rohrt has been a registered liquidator since 2008. In January 2017, ASIC announced that it had accepted a voluntary undertaking from him after reviewing several external administrations and concluding he had not adequately discharged his duties. ASIC and trade press reported that Rohrt acknowledged failures in "some, but not necessarily all" reviewed matters, including delayed reporting of possible offences, the absence of a structured asset-sale program and inadequate documentation. ASIC also identified deficiencies in investigating companies' financial circumstances and potential illegal phoenix activity.

Under the undertaking, Rohrt agreed to independent review of 12 of his administrations during 2017, to maintain practice capacity adequate to the appointments he accepted, and to train staff in dealing with aggrieved creditors. ASIC noted his cooperation and the remedial steps he had taken.

In December 2018, Mr Rohrt was one of five liquidators named during a Federal Court public examination into alleged phoenix activity. Whilst no wrongdoing was alleged against him, he told trade press he had ended the relationship that was in question by the Federal Court. He and two others received show-cause notices from the profession's peak body.

That history does not establish misconduct in this liquidation. It is relevant public-record context however, about the practitioner selected and funded by Ngo and his legal team.

It is the statutory duty of any legal practitioner to investigate whether a liquidator has been involved in illegal Phoenix activity prior to their engagement.

Uncharted

On the 17th January 2025, 12 weeks after the winding-up orders, Uncharted Group Pty Ltd was registered in Carlton, Victoria.

Its website, unchartedgroup.au, describes a company that produces large-scale expos and conferences, and lists two brands, the Australian Tattoo Expo and the Rites of Passage Festival. Its self-description reads:

"We craft culture. We connect communities. We make noise. Uncharted Group engineers large-scale expos and conferences that defy expectations and spark cultural waves. We unite creators, brands, and audiences inside bold, high-voltage experiences where art, ideas, and industry collide. From grassroots scenes to global spotlights, Uncharted powers meaningful moments that redefine culture and reshape industries. We don't just run events. We create impact." Source: unchartedgroup.au, September 2026. Source: unchartedgroup.au, September 2026.

The video playing across the top of the homepage is served from a file named aegwebsite2021video. It appears to be the same promotional video to one previously used by Australian Exhibition Group under Mack's ownership. The liquidator has confirmed that the Australian Tattoo Events assets were sold, however, whether Australian Exhibition Group's assets, including any rights to the video were part of any sale has not yet been confirmed.

On the 31st August 2025, the expo website announced its return. The statement said the event had collapsed under previous management more than a year earlier, entered administration and been acquired by Uncharted Group, whose owners had no ties to former management. The statement was signed by Frankie N. and the Australian Tattoo Expo team.

The sale

Documents provided to NOFUF show that in early August 2026 a former Common Media Group employee, who was owed $40,029.65 in entitlements and around $12,000 in superannuation wrote to liquidator Richard Rohrt asking what had happened to the business.

On the 25th August, Rohrt replied that the business and its assets remained unsold and under his control. Two days later, on the 27th August, he corrected that account, explaining that he had referred to Common Media and Sexpo, not the Tattoo Expo.

Rohrt wrote that the Australian Tattoo Events assets had been advertised in the Australian Financial Review, with expressions of interest closing on the 1st August 2025, and that it had subsequently been sold. Rhort explained that prospective buyers were required to sign a confidentiality deed and pay a non-refundable $1,000 deposit to receive the information memorandum. The sale agreement, he said, prevented him from identifying the parties or disclosing its terms. The correspondence did not disclose the sale price.

In a further inquiry dated 29th August, the former employee asked whether the purchaser was an existing connected entity or related party, such as a former director or shareholder, and whether Common Media Group assets were included in the sale. A yes-or-no answer, he said would suffice.

Rohrt replied that he was unsure what the former employee meant by "related party", but suspected the correct answer was yes. Regarding the assets of the Common Media Group, he wrote the question was too broad, and an answer could breach confidentiality. He advised the former employee to engage a solicitor, whose approach, he wrote, would be "different and correct".

The expo is now presented as a brand of Uncharted Group Pty Ltd, registered 12 weeks after the winding-up orders. Liquidation records and correspondence reviewed by NOFUF show that former employees remained creditors at the dates of those documents.

Dubai

UAE Stories promoted PlanX as a forum for founders, investors and operators focused on business structures, mobility and cross-border wealth. PlanX initially advertised its 2026 conference for 27–28 April at the Grand Hyatt Dubai, sold tickets and announced speakers. Its website later moved the event to 25–26 November at the same venue. NOFUF found no public announcement explaining the change.

Unpaid exhibitors, suppliers and former employees of the Australian Tattoo Expo have questioned how Ngo financed a Dubai venture while substantial debts from the companies he pushed into liquidation remained outstanding.

Creditors have also asked why the Adelaide Tattoo Expo and Sydney's Rites of Passage Tattoo festival were not among the first events revived, those events previously being next on the former group's schedule and creditors say, accounted for some of their largest losses.

None of these events appear to be listed on the current Uncharted groups calendar operated by Ngo.

Franki Ngo did not respond to the editors right of reply request by the stated dead line.

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