Tel.Me. announces bankruptcy

Tel. Me, an Austrian manufacturer of MP3 players and high-end smartphones, has brought this week a bankruptcy petition with the Viennese commercial court. An investor round could not be time-fairly entered, is called it in an explanation of the enterprise. Furthermore, a development partner has blocked production because of component purchase piracy. An additional damage of 1 million euro has been developed, because orders could not be fulfilled by the missing components.

A parallel running financing round was terminated this week. Only 65 per cent of the necessary investition were represented, say Tel.Me. The enterprise shall announce now the bankruptcy despite the additional basic agreements for 2004 at a value of 40.000 pieces (order value in approximately 7 million euro), an average annual growth of 60 per cent and a foreseeable positive development. Several attempts to guarantee further activities beyond the bankruptcy petition also failed in the last days.

Manfred Jahn, founder and CEO: "It is pity an enterprise with a positive order situation and an above the average annual growth to announce bankruptcy in the phase of a turn around. Unfortunately, it was not possible to receive sufficient support from the Austrian financial world, in order to ensure a secured capital cover for the enterprise and to be able to bridge among other things losses of production.