Found public article rehashing the one you saw: https://www.aamulehti.fi/talous/art-2000009647640.html. It’s not cash, it’s assets. Jolla owe €140k debt to some lawyers and a bunch more money in taxes et al. Finland has a corporate protection process, thankfully.
The article implies Jolla still don’t have a buyer for Rostelcom’s shares.
There is more we don’t understand. Were Jolla voluntarily entering the restructuring process or did they have problems borrowing money? Were Rostelcom valuing their shares too high? If so, how much can shares for a company currently valued at (minus) -€8m be worth anyway? Can the restructuring process Rostelcom to accept a lower value?
This is Chinastone presumably: https://www.ltddir.com/companies/chinastone-hong-kong-holdings-limited/
Without that deal, I’d be very worried.
Tampere-based software company Jolla to be put into receivership - wants to get rid of Russian owners
Software company Jolla’s creditors are applying to have it put into receivership. The company would like to get rid of its Russian shareholders.
10.6. 15:27
SOFTWARE COMPANY Jolla is being sought for corporate restructuring. The company, which is mainly based in Tampere, is being put into administration by the law firms Castrén & Snellman and Borenius, which are among the company’s creditors.
According to documents submitted to the Pirkanmaa District Court in early June, Jolla owes the law firms a total of around €140 000. According to the restructuring application, the company’s main creditors are Votron, the State Treasury, the pension company Elo and the Tax Administration. The Helsingin Sanomat was the first to report on the case.
According to the application, Jolla is insolvent. Based on last year’s preliminary accounts, the company’s assets amount to approximately EUR 4.1 million and the liabilities to be taken into account in the restructuring application amount to EUR 12.5 million.
The law firms applying for the restructuring consider that without the restructuring Jolla would go bankrupt.
The company’s application for reorganisation reportedly also seeks a change in the ownership structure of the company. According to the application, Rostelecom, which is partly owned by the Russian State, currently indirectly holds about 30% of Jolla’s shares.
In 2018, Rostelecom announced that it had acquired a 75% stake in Open Mobile Platform and Votron, one of Jolla’s largest creditors, giving it a controlling stake in the operating system developer Sailfish Mobile OS RUS.
Jolla is best known as the developer of the Sailfish mobile operating system. According to the restructuring application, the company licensed the operating system to Rostelecom in 2016, and the Russian company has used the licence to develop an operating system called Aurora OS, which is used, for example, by the Russian state administration.
Following the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the company has said it wants to get rid of its Russian owners.
According to the restructuring application, Jolla ran into significant financial difficulties as a result of the war and was forced to close down its business in Russia.
According to the petition, Russian ownership has become an obstacle to the company’s business in other markets and its ownership structure is seen as problematic, particularly by its customers in the automotive industry. According to the application, this will significantly reduce the company’s turnover in the current year.
In the preliminary financial statements accompanying the application for reorganisation, Jolla states that it has been trying for several years without success to reduce or eliminate Russian ownership of the company.
Rostelecom has already announced in spring 2022 that it is ready to sell its stake in Jolla and has resigned from the board to demonstrate this.
According to the restructuring application, the only members of Jolla’s board are currently Sami Pienimäki, the company’s CEO, and Boris Krasnovsky, a Russian investor.
Jolla, founded in 2011 to develop the Meego operating system, which was rejected by NOKIA, also filed for corporate restructuring in late 2015.
Less than half a year later, it announced that it had received additional funding and cancelled its restructuring. The company admitted that part of the funding came from Russia, but declined to give details of the source of the funding.
According to the restructuring application, sales to Russia accounted for up to 60-90% of the company’s turnover between 2016 and 2021.
According to the application, Jolla signed a multi-year licensing agreement with Hong Kong-based Chinastone in 2021, and is targeting the Chinese market with the agreement.
According to the company, the agreement will generate significant licensing fees for it in the coming years.