May 15, 2000
Dow Jones Newswires
McCaw's Eagle River Ends Nextlink
Commun Stock Sales
KIRKLAND, Wash. -- Craig O. McCaw's Eagle River Investments LLC
ended its sale of Nextlink Communications Inc. (NXLK) common shares,
citing confusion among investors concerning the total amount of shares being
offered.
In a press release Monday, Eagle River said that upon reading recently public
securities filings, investor confusion about the volume of shares being sold
apparently arose from a misinterpretation of the securities filings.
As reported Feb. 23, the company said it would sell about 9%, or 3.5 million
shares, of its stake in Nextlink, through programmed sales of 17,500 shares
per day for 200 trading days.
Eagle River said it did not intend to either stop nor accelerate the sales
process, but decided to take immediate steps designed to terminate the sales
due to external factors completely unrelated to the company's performance
that have altered the financial environment.
In a separate press release, McCaw refuted a report that Eagle River was
selling Nextel Communications Inc. (NXTL) shares to finance satellite
communications businesses.
Eagle River, which owns or controls more than 40 million Nextel common
shares, said it gave about 2.9 million Nextel shares to a satellite
communications enterprise two months ago.
The company said the satellite enterprise then put a collar on the stock and
borrowed against it in order to use the proceeds to help fund the acquisition
of London-based ICO Global Communications Ltd. (ICOFQ) out of
bankruptcy.
As reported, Eagle River led a group of existing ICO investors to provide
$225 million in debtor-in-possession financing.
ICO develops and sells mobile communications services designed to enable
local service provider networks to offer mobile voice telephony, data,
facsimile, messaging and other services.
McCaw is the chairman and chief executive of Eagle River, through which he
holds his interests in Nextlink, Nextel and Teledesic LLC. He is the founder
and a director of Nextlink. |
