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KPNQwest employees walk out
16:35 Friday 19th July 2002
Reuters
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The network is in limbo after staff at the bankrupt Dutch company walk out, but talks with KPN are ongoing
The skeleton staff of bankrupt Dutch KPNQwest have walked out, leaving the network in limbo amid hopes its trustees will soon reach a deal to sell the remnants to one of its founders, KPN Telecom.
Though the company's employees had previously warned they would start shutting down what was once Europe's largest data network on Friday morning, they said they would leave it running for now but would not be around if anything went awry.
KPNQwest was declared bankrupt at the end of May after its parents and main clients, KPN and US phone carrier Qwest, terminated financial support as the company faced shrinking revenues and an insurmountable debt pile.
With KPN's help, KPNQwest's court-appointed trustees had managed to keep a substantial part of its network running despite many close calls, preventing a possible disruption in Europe's Internet traffic and giving customers -- shocked at the company's swift collapse -- time to switch to other providers.
"Nearly all the people have left the building by now, with a couple staying around to write some emails and send out a few resumes. But they have not shut down the network," Jos van der Klauw, head of operations at KPNQwest, told Reuters.
Hopes were high KPNQwest's trustees and creditors would soon seal a deal to sell the west European KPNQwest assets to KPN, said Van der Klauw.
"We are leaving the network just floating," he said, adding that the staff -- who were paid up to Friday and had threatened to shut the network if no buyer was found by then -- hoped for a deal that meant they would be offered new jobs next week.
Van der Klauw said the workers' decision to walk out "might not affect functionality. It's all about luck."
KPNQwest administrator Eddie Meijer said talks with KPN, which owns 40 percent of the company's nearly worthless equity, were ongoing.
"We are ready to transact... We hope we can do the deal with KPN," Meijer said early Friday, adding that he hoped there would be a decision later in the day on KPN's undisclosed bid.
More than 40 groups were once interested in buying all or parts of KPNQwest's 25,000-km network, but the liquidators have managed to sell only parts of it and pulled in slightly more than 20m euros (£13m) so far.
KPNQwest -- which was established just three years ago -- once had a market value of 42bn euros.
The Nordic region's largest telecoms group Telia, which has already snapped up other parts of KPNQwest's network, has also expressed interest in the assets KPN wants, but Meijer said the firms were not in a bidding war.
"We are speaking to Telia but it's not an active negotiation," the trustee said.
KPN said on Thursday it was only interested in the network if it was intact and had customers, but its spokesman Bram Oudshoorn said his firm had set no deadline, though he expected a decision soon on its bid.
"We are in discussions. It won't take forever -- I think it will be soon. But you never know," Oudshoorn said when asked when he expected a decision on KPN's bid.
KPN led a group of operators who funded the network's operations for several weeks after KPNQwest's collapse before cutting support last week to put pressure on the company's administrators and creditors.
KPN has refused to disclose how much it is bidding, but sources close to the talks have said it offered some 20m euros for the network earlier this month before a part of it was sold last week to Telia.
KPNQwest's assets have been under some form of bankruptcy procedures in nearly a dozen countries, complicating any talks.
"We did not want to frustrate the negotiations going on by shutting down the network," Van der Klauw said.
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