SHAREHOLDERS of ailing telecommunications outfit Tennyson Networks have accepted Ascent Capital’s bid to inject $AU1.2 million in the company and take a 40% shareholding.
Tennyson, now called Fusia, should re-list on the Australian Stock Exchange within six weeks, and will move from Melbourne to Perth, Ascent’s base.
But the deed of company arrangement, which got approval on March 29, does not guarantee the future of Tennyson’s telephony product Sox, which is distributed here by Sox New Zealand and sold by Computerland and 16 other resellers. But Sox New Zealand director Simon Hepburn says he is pleased with the outcome. “It’s freed up Sox and will move it in the direction it truly needs to.”
Ascent director David Steinepreis says Sox requires a lot of money to return it to market. “We will continue with Sox but in a limited scale. We haven’t issued a prospectus yet — we hope to settle with the administrators on Tuesday (April 20).”
Ascent has appointed CDM Australia to handle Sox marketing and distribution.
Acceptance of Ascent’s offer ends a nine-month saga that started last July when another investor, Neoside, proposed a near-$AU10 million cash injection to help Tennyson overcome cash flow problems. Tennyson went into voluntary administration in October and Neoside failed to come up with the money, which opened the door for Ascent. Neoside continued to tell the channel up until March 27 that its funds — coming from the US and Philippines — would arrive in time for the March 29 shareholder vote, despite saying the delays were due to Australian foreign currency regulations.
Meanwhile, Steinepreis says Tennyson’s Napier-based subsidiary in liquidation, Datareach, is not part of the new Fusia set-up.
