| Kirjoittaja | Viesti | ||
     Janne |
I guess I really should not care, but when I read something so twisted and so wrong I have to respond. The VisCorp Board of Directors did not want to move ahead with the Amiga transaction after the bankruptcy of Escom. That was in June/July 1996. We had already entered into a purchase agreement with Escom to purchase Amiga in April/May 1996. Escom in exchange for Amiga was taking an equity position in VisCorp and would distribute the ED in Europe. Sadly, this did not work out because of the demise of Escom. Nevertheless, the VisCorp Board authorized us to enter into a purchase agreement with the Bankruptcy Trustee and if we were successful we could move ahead with the VisCorp plan. If it did not work out, it was our loss personally and VisCorp would move on to other things (which they did and why we own the VisCorp patents to this day -- we bought them). From our perspective moving ahead with Amiga was the only thing to do. Without the OS we had nothing that really made the ED unique. Hence, the name Raquel Velasco GmbH. Raquel charged 50,000 DM to her credit card at the Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch in Frankfurt (thanks to the Hotel Manager) and handed the money over to Petro to meet the share capital minimum of the new Company. In a day we were off and running as Raquel Velasco GmbH i.g. In Germany, you have to name a Company what it is and at that point that is all it was. In the meanwhile, Dr. Hembach agreed to let us continue to operate Amiga as a complete entity, instead of splitting up all the pieces and selling them off (IP, inventory, trademarks, etc.). This is what he wanted to do. Once we entered into the purchase agreement, he agreed to keep it together. The arrangement required us to pay the salaries ourselves (since VisCorp would not support it up-front). Operational costs could be covered by sales. That two million as it came (it was not there in the beginning, it accumulated) reduced the purchase price and stayed in an account controlled by the Trustee, not us. Petro would manage the Company with us. Everything mentioned in the last paragraph happen over a weekend and was finalized by the end of third day, a Monday. There were many telephone calls back and forth to Chicago and both Helmut Jost and Petro assisted greatly in keeping things together. Helmut was running Escom after the departure of Manfred Schmidt. We continue with this arrangement until the end of November 1996. Everyone at Amiga was fully paid during that period. Afterwards, we returned to Paris and then back to Chicago where we resigned from VisCorp in January 1997. We still owned 16% of VisCorp and over time by selling our equity in the market more than recovered our costs and expenses. Before it is mentioned, everyone who was owed money from VisCorp was fully paid too, including Carl, Jason, Almathera, and any one else that had done work for the Company -- including the last ones paid, the lawyers in Frankfurt. In the last two years there have been a number of public statements by these individuals confirming these facts. Gareth, you can add that to the record if it is not there already. @Joe -- see comment here about our thoughts on AmigaDE/OS http://www.amiga.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=15667&forum=27 @Ferrán -- if you have further questions you are welcome to email us, but please no unnecessary personal attacks based on incorrect information. R&B http://www.ann.lu/...=forum&start=1&27 |