Telecom firm in talks on future

Atlantic Telecom is in talks with investor representatives

UK phone company Atlantic Telecom - which recently reported mounting losses - has confirmed it is in talks about its future.

The announcement on Thursday was made in response to a report in The Financial Times saying some bondholders are pressing for the company to be wound up.

An spokeswoman for Atlantic Telecom, which is based in Aberdeen, said talks had been going on since June involving the firm's bosses and representatives of investors.

There is no timetable for when the discussions will end, she said.

But she stressed that the difficulties faced by the company are being felt across the telecoms sector.

Trading continues

The Financial Times piece said the bondholder groups fears that without a fresh injection of funds, debt obligations will not be met.

But the paper emphasised that there was no question of Atlantic being in default of its bonds and the company would not be forced to stop trading.

At the end of June, the firm reported growing losses.

Eighteen months ago it was valued at more than £1bn; now it is valued at just above £3m.

By June it had lost £135m compared with losses of £33m for the same time last year.

At the time, company chief executive Graham Duncan said Atlantic was not "on its last legs" and added that it was taking a "long-view" approach to business.

The group's UK customer base is concentrated in Scotland, where it has about 22,500 residential customers.

Its main operations are in Germany, where it offers broadband services across the country.