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Promethean Investment Group last week took its turn at kicking an already beaten and battered Excite@Home, demanding the troubled ISP repay $50 million in notes it had secured only three months earlier. Promethean, which coughed up $100 million in June, is accusing @Home of breaching its agreement with one of its investment funds, giving it the right to demand early payment.

“They're saying we didn't provide them with a good understanding of what our financial standing was,” said an @Home spokeswoman. “We're contending that we did.”

The development has more than just Excite@Home puzzled. The company was expected to repay the Promethean notes early — @Home even warned of it in its last SEC filing — but analysts and @Home officials were expecting notice to come if the company was delisted by the Nasdaq, as spelled out in its filing. While delisting is a distinct possibility given @Home's severely depressed stock price, the actual process would take months.

Promethean's claim of being uninformed came as a surprise, said Michael Goodman, analyst for The Yankee Group.

“Excite was quite upfront about the fact they needed the loan to stay in business,” Goodman said. “How much more information than that does Promethean need to know that this would be a risky investment? This is just screaming arbitration or even a court case.”

Promethean issued the notes long after Excite@Home's April announcement that it was running out of cash. At the end of June, it had $181 million in cash to last the year, including the $100 million it had secured from Promethean in two separate placements. Promethean has not asked for repayment on the second placement.

Promethean could not be reached for comment.