Riverstone offers more financial details

Riverstone Networks released bankruptcy court documents today that offer additional details on the company as it moves to sell its assets in auction to Lucent Technologies.

As of December 24, 2005, the carrier Ethernet equipment vendor had more than $98 million in total assets and more than $130 million in total liabilities. At that time, the company also had cash, cash equivalents and investments totaling nearly $102 million, down from more than $120 million in August. Its long-term investments include a $147,000 investment in Hong Kong equipment vendor Vodatel Networks, which has collaborated with Riverstone on some network deployments in China. Riverstone owns more than 5.8 million shares of Vodatel.

Riverstone intends to use its cash and investments, which are not included in its asset sale to Lucent, to pay down its nearly $66 million in debt and other liquidation costs. After that, it will give any remaining cash to its shareholders.

Riverstone enters the bankruptcy process with between 5,000 and 10,000 creditors, according to court filings. Beyond the nearly $66 million in debt Riverstone owes the bank, its biggest creditor is Ixia, the IP performance testing vendor, to which Riverstone owes $135,654. In the company’s list of its top 20 creditors, it owes tens of thousands of dollars to those near the top of the list; it owes a few hundred dollars each to those rounding out the top 20, including Axess Limousine, based in San Jose, Calif., to which Riverstone owes $324.

In addition, Riverstone’s insurer, Lloyds of London, has claimed that the company’s prior management used false and misleading information to obtain a $15-million insurance policy protecting against director and officer liability. Under that policy, Lloyds paid Riverstone $13.5 million in 2004 as a result of an accounting fraud that is still being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Riverstone denies the complaint has merit, but Lloyds “has suggested that they might try” to recover all or some of that $13.5 million in court, Riverstone said.

At the end of 2005, Riverstone, which employs 400 people, had $9.1 million in compensation expenses, including $2.6 million in bonuses and retention costs.

A hearing on the asset auction will be held on March 23. Riverstone expects to submit a liquidation plan to the court in April.