Baan stays afloat after raising $41m in equity

Baan has reached an agreement to raise nearly $41m (£26m) in equity funding to try to shore up its position on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (ASE).

Baan has reached an agreement to raise nearly $41m (£26m) in equity funding to try to shore up its position on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (ASE).

The ailing enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor, which has been without a chief executive for two months and has had to sell off parts of its organisation such as its Coda financial business to stay afloat, will issue 6.5 million shares to unidentified institutional investors in exchange for $40.9m worth of debt that will not mature until December. The move will increase the equity on the company's balance sheet by the value of the shares.

Last month, the ASE gave Baan 30 days to boost its shareholder equity following the erosion of the company's value. Shareholders have deserted in droves after losses in six consecutive quarters.

If Baan had failed to convince the debt holders to switch, the stock exchange would have put Baan's stock in a 'special listing'.

Baan is paying a high price to avoid the embarrassment of such a listing.

The number of shares being issued under the debt for equity deal is worth more than three times what the shares were originally expected to be worth.

Debt holders will all receive 160 shares for each $1,000 proffered. Baan said it would extend the conversion offer to investors holding another $149m worth of the same notes. The wider offer, due to start later this month, will last until the end of May.

For the whole of fiscal 1999, Baan posted a net loss of $289m, compared with losses of $315m in 1998. Turnover fell from $736m in 1998 to $635m last year.