Content area
Full Text
With financial markets still unfavourable and financiers still clinging tightly to their wallets, another Canadian company has boarded the sinking CLEC ship.
On August 7, PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. (PWC) was appointed interim receiver of Norigen Communications Inc. by the Ontario courts. The day prior to that, the directors of Norigen had resigned and the company had no cash to operate, according to Toronto-based PWC Senior Vice-President Andy Wilczynski.
Headquartered in Toronto, Norigen offered its One Source portfolio of telecommunications services to customers in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton and Hamilton, Ont. This offering enabled customers to create their own bundles of services. PWC will now be looking for parties to buy some or all of Norigen. The infrastructure is still in place, and Norigen has access nodes in approximately 300 buildings, according to Wilczynski.
[Graph Not Transcribed]
"We will approach carriers and anybody else who is interested in becoming a telecom company or is diversifying their interests in the telephone world. That may be...Internet service providers, for example, (that) may have an interest. Norigen also holds some spectrum licenses, and we'll be looking for buyers to acquire those."
The market has not been favourable to companies such as Norigen. With the recent failings of fellow CLECs, including C1 Communications, Axxent Corp. and Cannect Communications, it was no surprise...