Finland's other mobile phone maker pulls through

Benefon, Finland's other mobile phone maker, has survived to fight another day. Two weeks ago, the company revealed that its ability to survive was contingent on an immediate cash injection of €20m.

On Tuesday (Feb 25), the firm announced on its website that it has received "subscription commitments" for €11.6m from investors and creditors. This includes bridging finance of €0.45m, presumably to tide the company over until the rest of the money comes through, and "debt offsets" of &euro 1.1m. Which means that there's only €10m or so of new money. In return, subscribers are getting new shares or convertible bonds.

But who are the providers of the new money. It looks like there is only one big subscriber, a company called NRJ International LLC (Who they? -Ed), which is stumping up a maximum of &euro 10.03m in equity by Jan 31, 2006. Half of this comes in the form of shares and half in convertible bonds. ®

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