Open Range files bankruptcy to sell assets or wind down operations

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Oct. 6 - Open Range Communications Inc. filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

"Despite a myriad of corporate initiatives, the company's business results precipitously declined and it has failed to achieve the customer, revenue, EBITDA and other target[s] set in its new [business] plan," chief financial officer Chris Edwards said in a statement filed with the court.

Edwards said the company's failure to achieve the new plan was based on continued network and self-interference issues, resulting in an inability to effectively add and service customers and a poor customer experience. This led to higher-than-forecasted bad debt and non-paying customers.

Open Range filed bankruptcy to either complete a going-concern sale of its assets or wind down its business operations through Chapter 11 liquidation, Edwards said.

Specifically, the company will market its assets during the first 30 days of the case. If the sale process is not successful, Open Range said it will immediately shut down its network and start to wind down its operations.

According to court documents, Open Range had $114 million in total assets and $110 million of debt at Sept. 30.

The company's largest unsecured creditors include:

• Adesta, LLC of Omaha, Neb., with a $7.57 million trade payable claim;

• Velocitel, Inc., of Cary, N.C., with a $5.59 million trade payable claim;

• One Equity Partners JPM Chase OEP of New York, with a $2.79 million management fee; and

• Alvarion, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., with a $1.96 million trade payable claim.

Vision Opportunity Master Fund, Ltd. owns 57% of Open Range's common stock and OEP Open Range Holdings, LLC owns 97% of its series B preferred stock and 99.6% of its series C preferred stock.

The company is represented by Cole, Schotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard.

Open Range Communications is a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based broadband company. Its Chapter 11 case number is 11-13188.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.