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Bankrupt Advanced TelCom Group rebuffs bid from Integra Telecom

The Associated Press
Saturday June 08, 2002

SANTA ROSA – Bankrupt Advanced TelCom Group spurned a $13.8 million bid to sell most of its West Coast telephone service to Integra Telecom and instead will try to work out a deal with other suitors vying for the company’s remaining assets. 

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Alan Jaroslovsky on Thursday reopened the auction for the Santa Rosa-based company’s assets in parts of California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington at the request of ATG, which filed for bankruptcy early last month. 

ATG is trying to sell pieces of its business without disrupting service to its 35,000 customers. 

Beaverton, Ore.-based Integra had submitted the highest bid to acquire the operations serving 22,000 of those customers, but couldn’t work out a deal acceptable to ATG, despite negotiations that lasted beyond a Tuesday deadline for closing the sale. 

“We ran out of time,” said Dudley Slater, Integra’s chief executive officer. “We were going hot and heavy, and we believed we delivered the offer we agreed upon.” Integra won’t submit another bid, Slater said. 

ATG is interested in meeting with five other bidders, said Michael Aherns, the company’s attorney. He didn’t identify the interested parties. 

CyberGate Nevada LLC had made the second highest bid in the initial auction, although terms of its offer weren’t disclosed in court documents. 

In a separate deal approved by Jaroslovsky earlier this week approved ATG’s sale of its operations in San Rafael and Concord for $500,000 to TelePacific of Los Angeles. The sale covered 1,100 ATG customers. 

Founded in 1998, privately held ATG burned through more than $500 million in venture capital and loans before landing in bankruptcy court.