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Technology Stocks : Broadband Wireless Access [WCII, NXLK, WCOM, satellite..] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (1822)	8/27/2001 3:22:50 PM
From: transmission	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1860

Teligent Trims Staff for Asset Sale By Yuki Noguchi, Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 27, 2001; 8:18AM A newly formed company agreed Friday to bid $117.5 million for the pared-down telephone assets of Teligent Inc. to get Teligent out of bankruptcy, after Teligent laid off an additional 150 employees to prepare for the sale. Teligent Acquisition Corp., backed by current management, has offered to purchase Teligent's network of rooftop antennas that deliver phone and Internet data, provided the new company receives financing. In connection with the bid, Vienna-based Teligent is seeking approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York to hold an auction of its assets. The date of that auction has not been set, but TAC will be the initial bidder. If TAC wins the auction and receives approval from the court as well as various state and federal regulatory agencies, the deal could close during the fourth quarter, sources said. Jim Continenza, chief operating officer of Teligent, would become chief executive of TAC. The new company is expected to keep its headquarters in Northern Virginia, sources said. The sale will include the company's operations in its 11 main markets — including Washington, New York, and Philadelphia — as well as the staff to run the operations. It will also include equipment and customers in Teligent's other markets, where operations are minimal. That agreement came as Teligent trimmed about 20 percent of its workforce Friday, bringing its employee base down to 650 people, sources said. The laid-off employees will receive severance based on their years of service, sources said. Since it filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in May, Teligent has drastically reduced its operations to save money. It scaled back from 43 markets to 23, and then to 11, as it transfers the majority of its customers in less profitable markets to other carriers, sources said. The company has been subsisting on cash provided in two-week increments from its bank creditors, led by Chase Manhattan Bank, as it looks for a buyer for its assets or the entire company. IDT Corp., a Newark, N.J.-based international-calling-card company, had been its most promising bidder — at one point offering $250 million for the company, sources said. IDT bought about a third of Teligent's shares in April, took control of the company's board of directors, and replaced Teligent's founding chief executive, Alex J. Mandl. But IDT's bid was rejected by the banks,sources said, and IDT executives then resigned from their positions at Teligent. IDT still owns about 37 percent of Teligent shares and controls the vacant board seats. Verizon Communications Inc. was considering a bid for Teligent's spectrum, sources said. WorldCom Inc. — rumored as another possible bidder — is not considering purchasing the assets, sources said. When it was founded in 1996, Teligent was an iconic example of the rise of telecommunications competition following the passage of legislation that deregulated local phone markets. Plied with lots of investor cash, the firm installed antennas on rooftops of major office buildings and transmitted phone and data traffic through that network, circumventing the regional Bells' lines. At its height, Teligent employed 3,600 people. But last spring, when the capital markets took a dive, Teligent became an early example of an overextended firm with an abundant appetite for cash that Wall Street was no longer offering.