Eclipse Network's white knight needs to commit to rescuing the company this weekend, or Monday will see the start of Eclipse being wrapped up.
Eclipse was placed under judicial management in March after management was not able to pay creditors, who are believed to be owed in the region of R50 million.
Earlier this week, Eclipse's largest creditor, MB Technologies' Tarsus operation, placed the company into provisional liquidation.
MB Technologies CEO Glenn Fullerton says there was no choice in the matter - its insurers required that Eclipse be placed into provisional liquidation, because there was no firm rescue plan on the table. “There is no level of certainty.”
Fullerton says MB Technologies has to protect its interests, and the matter could not drag on indefinitely. He has previously explained that the company is owed millions, some of which has been outstanding for years.
However, he is hopeful that Eclipse will be rescued, and jobs saved. “It's very bad for the industry to see job losses.”
Final countdown
Dean Botha, a liquidator with Corporate Liquidators, says a deal must be agreed to with the interested party on Sunday, or Eclipse will be wrapped up.
The unnamed white knight was initially expected to submit an offer this Monday after completing due diligence on Eclipse.
First prize would be selling Eclipse as a going entity in its entirety. Should that fail, says Botha, negotiations with companies, such as Netsurit, will then start surrounding the buy out of parts of the company.
If an agreement is not reached this weekend, Botha will start closing branches to save on operational costs, such as rental.
He says, however, that the aim is to rescue as many of the almost 300 jobs as possible by finding new homes for contracts, and getting the companies to take staff over along with the deals.
Eclipse started trading in 1981, and had 13 outlets across SA when it went under administration. It called itself an IT reseller, and ICT solutions and services provider. Its offerings spanned infrastructure, data centre solutions, outsourcing and related services.
Share
