Telewest going into liquidation?

[SMHarman]

For clarification, if someone does a company search they will not find telewest cable as a liquidated company.

[Stuart]

Indeed. The shares were still trading on NASDAQ yesterday. I thought the first step in winding up any company was to suspend trading in shares.

[SMHarman]

It's a different telewest. I could go and buy the company Telewest at Home Ltd (or something similar) if I wanted to today. Does not mean it is related to the listed company.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

It's a different telewest. I could go and buy the company Telewest at Home Ltd (or something similar) if I wanted to today. Does not mean it is related to the listed company.

Telewest Global. I got the info from Telewest's investor relations page. http://ir.telewest.co.uk/phoenix.zht...IROL-ShareInfo

Telewest Global is the NEW company, not being wound up (actually it's shares are steadily going up). Telewest Communications is the OLD company (being wound up, and changed to Titan).

That's it, nothing more to see or worry about.

[goldelvis]

Apologies for adding to this post so late (nearly 6 months!) but I am a TW Comminications shareholder and due to changing address recently am without any info on the corporate action taken in July this year and the implications for it's shareholders. If anyone there can post some useful info I'd be grateful. Reading the earlier posts on this Friday, it very much looks like we've been stitched, is that the case? Regards...

[m419]

I'm not a shareholder, but would like to share some of my views.

Telewest Communications is now a division of the NTL Group (NTL Incorporated). Until NTL decides what to do next.

I strongly feel that NTL will retain all assets, shareholders ect.... But the name,brand including Blueyonder, very few employees will all go in to liquidation.

Blueyonder customers will automatically be transfered to NTL World, Flextech will be a division of the NTL Group.

What belongs to NTL:

Telewest Communications (Flextech is still a division of Telewest)
Telewest Business (Still a division of Telewest Communications)
Front Row and Teleport (now 100%)
Blueyonder
NTL ConsumerCorp
NTL Business
NTL World
Virgin Net (Virgin Group sold it's 50% stake in 2004, so NTL now owns 100%)

What will probably go into liquidation:

Telewest Communications and eurobell (Since NTL is larger and bigger brand)
Blueyonder (Since NTL already an internet division)
NTL Freedom (Since NTL ConsumerCorp has expanded)
Front Row (Since Teleport is taking over)
NTL

Other companies such as Infolines/IPM UK have gone through the similar process:

In 1995, IPM Communications part of IPM Group PLC in italy aquired two payphone businesses; Mercury Payphones and Burwell plc. Mercury payphones (MCL payphones) was the street payphone division of Mercury Communications and IPM purchased all of the payphones, IPM replaced most of the blue mercury kiosks with the Orange interphone kiosks, IPM only replaced 1,500 and the rest including the Mercury name were sent into liquidation because they weren't commercially viable.

The Interphone division and managed payphones sector was called Infolines Limited and Infolines Public Networks. Many operations were sold to Central payphones in 1997 and Central payphones was the trading name for Infolines public Networks.

Interphone and many other payphones and communication services were still held by IPM-Infolines Limited. In 2000, IPM UK and Premier tele solutions merged and bacame Infolines Premier. A year later, the company experienced severe financial difficulty because of the takeover of Infolines Limited. In 2001, Premier Managed Payphones transfered all assets from Infolines Limited and Infolines Limited went into liquidation. The same year, Premier sold Interphone to Infolines Public Networks trading as Central payphones, Interphone then traded as a seperate company as Interphone Public Networks and went into liquidation recently just after selling 1,000 (Nearly all) of it's assets.

Infolines Public Networks was recently aquired by 4 kiosk solutions. Keeping all staff and any shareholders.

There aren't many shareholders as these businesses are all LTD's and not PLC's.

Since IPM sold Infolines Limited and Infolines Public Networks there was no reason for it to exist in the UK! So it disappeared back to italy. Note that, Infolines Limited and Infolines Public Networks became very seperate companies from 1997.

Since that Infolines Public Networks/Central payphones was aquired by 4 Kiosk Solutions, there was no need for 2 other trading names and the remaining 187 interphone kiosks were placed into liquidation together with Central Payphones.

This is something similar to the Telewest and NTL situation.

Originally Posted by goldelvis

Apologies for adding to this post so late (nearly 6 months!) but I am a TW Comminications shareholder and due to changing address recently am without any info on the corporate action taken in July this year and the implications for it's shareholders. If anyone there can post some useful info I'd be grateful. Reading the earlier posts on this Friday, it very much looks like we've been stitched, is that the case? Regards...

[SMHarman]

The debt for equity swap certainly reduced your ownership of the firm, however as it would be bankrupt otherwise it could be argued that you have not been shafted. This explains what happened to the ADRs, an ADR was the US equivilant of the Share.
http://www.adrbny.com/files/AC5047.pdf

[Pø†øƒGøL�]

Originally Posted by m419

Blueyonder customers will automatically be transfered to NTL World, Flextech will be a division of the NTL Group.

What belongs to NTL:

Telewest Communications (Flextech is still a division of Telewest)
Telewest Business (Still a division of Telewest Communications)
Front Row and Teleport (now 100%)
Blueyonder
NTL ConsumerCorp
NTL Business
NTL World
Virgin Net (Virgin Group sold it's 50% stake in 2004, so NTL now owns 100%)

What will probably go into liquidation:

Telewest Communications and eurobell (Since NTL is larger and bigger brand)
Blueyonder (Since NTL already an internet division)
NTL Freedom (Since NTL ConsumerCorp has expanded)
Front Row (Since Teleport is taking over)
NTL

So what happens to my email account then? I had a blueyonder one for years now and don't particularly want to have to email xxx people to say it has to change.

Originally Posted by PÃÃâ€*’¸ÃÆ⠀™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ãâ⠂¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ÃÃâ€*’Âƚ¸Ãƒâ€Â ââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢GÃÃâ€*’Ã ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¸LÃÃâ€*’ÂÂà ‚Â�

So what happens to my email account then? I had a blueyonder one for years now and don't particularly want to have to email xxx people to say it has to change.

I doubt very much whether it will change any time soon, if ever. There are still plenty of people out there with freeserve email addys after all.

[SMHarman]

Many of these names are IMHO divisions and brands, not corporate entities.

[goldelvis]

Thanks for your time on the above replies however upon further research it has become clear to me that Telewest Communications deliberately changed their name to Titan Plc earlier this year in view of the impending liquidation, then set up a new company Telewest Global in order to keep trading, thus shafting their existing shareholders especially in light of the recent merger with NTL. Shareholders of the old company were actually offered just 1 TW Global share for each 804.40 TW Communication shares! I mean is this right?? I wonder if anyone else have any views/experience of this?

Originally Posted by goldelvis

Thanks for your time on the above replies however upon further research it has become clear to me that Telewest Communications deliberately changed their name to Titan Plc earlier this year in view of the impending liquidation, then set up a new company Telewest Global in order to keep trading, thus shafting their existing shareholders especially in light of the recent merger with NTL. Shareholders of the old company were actually offered just 1 TW Global share for each 804.40 TW Communication shares! I mean is this right?? I wonder if anyone else have any views/experience of this?

Err yes, anyone with NTL shares will have had a similar experience. Both NTL and Telewest built up too much debt and had zero chance of ever making enough money to pay off their creditors. The only solution was to pay the creditors by giving them most of the company, in the form of new shares. It's not so very different from a bank reposessing your house if you don't pay the mortgage. And as a shareholder, Telewest is *your* house. The debt-for-equity swap effectively dilutes the value of the shares you are left with. It's not nice, but as a shareholder, it was your Board of Directors that took the decisions that almost led to ruin. When you buy shares, you take the risk and the responsibility when things go pear shaped just as you reap the profits when times are good.

[SMHarman]

This is similar to the Marconi (and I believe NTL), and soon possibly Eurotunnel deals that have / will occurred in recent years. The company borrows and borrows and the investment does not produce the revenue stream to pay the cost of borrowing, or even if it produces a revenue stream to pay the interest cost, it does not show the ability to ever repay the debt. The banks want their capital back and the arrangement of the loan means they can forclose and liquidate the company. This is not in the best interest of anyone, so they do a debt for equity swap and dilute your shareholding and replace their debt with equity, this equity does not require repayment and only requires dividend payment when cashflow can support it, thus putting the company on a sustainable footing going forward.

Boffins, Accountants and Lawyers look at this and work out the best way to restructure, in the TW case it involved creating a new corporate entity.

So have you been shafted, well you invested in a company that did not perform and as a result lost money, however you still have a stake in the pheonix company so it could be worse. Who shafted you, the banks who when they realised they could not get their money back took action, or the directors who borrowed it in the first place, or Sky who bent all the rules of their licence to achieve success more quickly or the global telecoms market which resulted in the cost of voice calls falling rapidy, or the FA for charging fortunes for pay football.

[m419]

Changes to Telewest and Blueyonder services are not likely until at least May 2006.

The blueyonder domain may never close or it may end in years to come similar to the @cableinet email domain.

Talking about email, is anyone planning to set up an account with Google (Gmail)?

Gmail is no longer giving out @gmail.com addresses anymore in the UK, instead they are giving out @googlemail.com addresses. Existing users of @gmail.com addresses should not make any changes, this change has been made due to another company in the UK also using the gmail name.

Anyone using wanadoo?

Wanadoo is being rebranded as 'Orange' in 2006 and it is likely addresses are going to be @orange.net

Originally Posted by PÃÃâ€*’¸ÃÆ⠀™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ãâ⠂¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ÃÃâ€*’Âƚ¸Ãƒâ€Â ââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢GÃÃâ€*’Ã ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¸LÃÃâ€*’ÂÂà ‚Â�

So what happens to my email account then? I had a blueyonder one for years now and don't particularly want to have to email xxx people to say it has to change.