#Philadelphia Inquirer
18 messages in this thread
Dan Stets, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was in the forum a
few days ago looking for information about Commodore. Today (July 19) an
article appeared in the Inquirer with his by-line. The important points
were …
1. The drama is unfolding at Le Meridien, "a graceful resort hotel on
fashionable Cable Beach" in the Bahamas.
2. The first official meeting of Commodore's Bahamian committee of
creditors was last Friday, July 15th.
3. Commodore's debt is $145.
4. Commodore was registered in the Bahamas and they initiated their
own liquidation in the Bahamas Supreme Court.
5. At least four (4) proposals to purchase Commodore have been received
so far. The bidding companies are Amstrad PLC, Philips Electronics,
Samsung Electronics, and Commodore UK.
6. Commodore's UK subsidiary was the only subsidiary which was operating
at a profit at the time Commodore began liquidation proceedings.
7. Commodore's creditors would like to "have the bankruptcy proceedings
moved (or at least parallel proceedings opened in the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court in New York."
8. "Under Bahamian law, a creditor's committee has an advisory role,
while under U.S. law, the creditors would have more say over final
disposition of the assets. Also, Bahamian law permits the liquidators
to go back to judge, and possibly reverse, management actions
involving assets three months before bankruptcy was declared.
American law permits a year."
9. Commodore's principal creditors are Prudential Insurance Company of
America, Pruco Life Insurance Company (a subsidiary of Prudential),
Anchor National Life Insurance Company, and Daewoo Telecom and
Daewoo Corporation.
10. The creditors want to challenge management's transfer of a Commodore
unit from one subsidiary to another, and they have questions about
the conduct of Commodore's former president, Mehdi R. Ali.
11. Ali is no longer associated with Commodore. "When reached at home by
telephone in Ridgefield, CT, Ali shouted 'You're intruding on my home.
I'll complain to your editor. You're an idiot.' He then hung up."
12. The Bahamian court-appointed liquidators hope to complete the sale
of assets 'very quickly'.
-sja
Gee, I just saw this posting. If anyone has any comments or questions about my
article, I would love to hear them and respond. I went to the creditors
meeting and met the liquidators.
— Dan Stets
Philadelphia Inquirer
"If anyone has any comments or questions about my article, I would love to hear
them and respond. I went to the creditors meeting and met the liquidators."
I'll be downloading the text tonight, Dan, and look forward to reading the
article. The Philadelphia Inquirer has been on my search list since the
liquidation started.
Please accept my compliments on doing what seems to be a first-class job of
reporting. Thank you!
Jerry
Thanks for putting a story together about Commodore! I assume that $145
is really $145 million, right?
Any word on any of the other companies involved?
Dan,
> If anyone has any comments or questions about my article, I would love
> to hear them and respond.
Great work! To think you found Ali's phone number….now that's
investigative reporting.
Randy
Traveling the $uper Information Highway
Finding Ali's phone number isn't incredibly difficult. Keeping your
eardrums after doing so is. I laughed a long time after reading the
quote. It captures his phone manner perfectly from all reports (he never
woke me at 3am to bitch about some problem, but I've heard from plenty of
people who've had that experience).
Dale L. Larson Intangible Assets Manufacturing (info@iam.com)
"That's the best part about being crazy. You see things no one else can see."
Dan, there are so many of us out here trying to figure out where we stand
as Amiga users, trying to make decisions as to what to do about keeping
our systems going, upgrading, replacing, etc. For instance, at some point
I'll need my computer at home usable by my now 8 month old baby. And in
the meantime, trying to decide whether to cut off putting money into this
system in favor of a pc. If there is a real future to the Amiga …
Of course, even if the Amiga survives, there are still issues to be dealt
with. A big one for me is whether it can meet my needs as a home user,
not heavily into video (though video use in the future would be nice).
Will I have an ongoing way to run the software I need to run, including
stuff like 123 (either native mode, or emulation as now). Etc.
Are you carried in any NYC newspaper?
Ron
Ron,
No, to my knowledge, the Philadelphia Inquirer is not picked up by any
of the NYC newspapers. I'm afraid I'm not really qualified to answer your
questions about the technology or Amiga's future. I don't know exactly what
Amstrad, Philips, or Samsung have in mind for the Amiga. I did have extended
conversations with David Pleasance, the Brit who is leading a management team
buyout attempt. He loves the Amiga and is convinced that the machine has a
future because of its relatively low cost and strong consumer and market base
in the UK and the rest of Europe. He also impressed me as a man who has
considerable respect for Commodore's engineers and technical people. He
believes in them and it seems he would do whatever he could to help the
machines evolve to meet future markets.
— Dan
Dan,
I read the Inquirer every day & must say you are about the only
mainstream publication that has covered Commodore continuously. Whenever they
brought out new products the Inquirer always reported them. I really enjoyed
this latest article, especially the paragraph on Ali's brush-off. What did you
say to elicit THAT response?
———————————————-Don- via Whap!
Don,
I didn't say anything unusual to touch off Ali. I just identified
myself. He went into a barely controlled rage. I felt we had an obligation to
contact him because the article mentioned questions had been raised about how
the company was run. I got the best explanation for his reaction from my wife,
who seems to have a special sense for such things, when I told her about it.
She said Ali could no longer believe he wasn't in control. He apparently is
so used to pushing people around, he assumed he could the same thing with me.
As to his remark about complaining to my editor, as you must realize, I am paid
to contact people, especially in cases such as this. My goal was to write as
balanced an article as possible. My call to Ali was a courtesy, something he
obviously didn't understand.
— Dan
Dan,
Several CIL people have told me that Ali's management "style" was that of
belligerence, intimidation, and personal attacks. His reaction to your call
was probably to be expected.
It seems to me that Ali's response completely justifies your call. The quote
"Me thinks the man doth protest too much" comes to mind. You must know how
much all of us on this forum appreciate someone with professional,
investigative skills, but if you don't, here it is again… Thanks for the
clearest bytes since this whole mess began..
jqk
<just Road-Kill on the ISH>
Dan,
Since your article has been posted in full on other networks (with or without
permission, I don't know) could I ask you to post it here in or give me
permission to post it?
You certainly have my permission to post it as long as you attribute it.
— Dan
Oh, could you tell me where the article has been posted and how I can get
there? I am more interested in seeing what else is posted than rereading my
stuff.
— Dan
Dan,
It was posted to usenet … comp.sys.amiga.misc, I think.