VIA NET.WORKS, Inc. - the business-focused telco in Europe and the US - has called in PricewaterhouseCoopers to help it secure new financing to address an "urgent liquidity problem".

Netherlands-based VIA NET.WORKS has given itself until the end of March to either find new investment or flog all or part of the business.

In a statement the company said: "A combination of factors including unanticipated revenue shortfalls in certain of its legacy VIA companies and its new VIA Express business would leave the company with insufficient cash reserves to continue the operations of the group's parent company in early April 2005."

VIA chief exec Ray Walsh explained: "We are pursuing all opportunities to optimise the value that is inherent in the VIA businesses. With an appropriate infusion of new cash to pay for additional cost reductions, we believe we could still achieve our goal of achieving positive cash flows from consolidated operations during 2005."

"Unfortunately, while we have built a business with approximately $100m in annualised revenue, we have not yet reached the point where our cash-generating operations can sustain the ongoing costs of running the group, including the very significant costs inherent in maintaining a public company," he said. ®

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