Progeni trading out of debt

Press, 26 September 1989, Page 22

Progeni trading out of debt

PA Wellington The pioneering New Zealand computer software exporter Progeni Holdings is trading its way out of $5.2 million in debts.

The ANZ and Bank of New Zealand are owed most of the money, but about 60 others have also agreed to give Progeni time to reorganise. Under a proposal submitted by Progeni and agreed to by all but one creditor, Progeni will suspend repayment of all debts over $lOOO for six months.

Progeni, which last year celebrated its twentieth anniversary, struck trouble 12 months ago when the international software company, Computer Associates, fought out Applied Data Research. 1 Progeni had been ADR’s distributor in New Zealand and Australia, and following the loss of the distributorship contract, it cut' staff in Australia. The lucrative IBM mainframe product distributorship produced the bulk of Progeni’s income in New Zealand and Australia.

Speaking from Sydney, the group chairman and founder of the privatelyowned company, Mr Perce Harpham, said Progeni was having to contend with curtailed credit lines from its banks while trying to transform its bread and butter operations in New Zealand following a drop in business earlier this year. “We are negotiating with joint-venture partners in Australia and the United States for new access and funding, which is partly why I’m here,” he said. Mr Harpham said Progeni had cut all the staff it was going to. The New Zealand operation was now seeking new staff.

He said Progeni’s New Zealand operation had re-oriented itself for development work in the growing Unix market by entering into a value-added software

agreement with Unisys. “Things are tougher than usual but they aren’t much tougher than they were in 1971 to 1973. It was very bloody in the computer industry in those years,” Mr Harpham said. Meanwhile, Progeni’s long-term export software development strategy was beginning to bear fruit. “In the early 1980 s, we realised that the growth in the computer industry would lead to an increased demand for training and saw an opportunity in computer-assisted learning systems. Now people are beginning to understand what it’s all about,” he said.

Progeni’s flagship software product, the computer-assisted learning development environment, Forge, has been bought by the National Provident Fund and Airways Corporation. In a milestone sale last year, Progeni won a sAustl.2M (NZSI.SSM) contract from the New V South Wales Attorney-General’s Department.

Mr Harpham said he expected further large contracts in the near future. Progeni’s ambitious long-term strategy has been to develop Forge for the Chinese market, along with a Chineseoriented personal computer, the Poly-C. Progeni is one of the few Western companies allowed a wholly owned subsidiary in China. The background document for creditors notes that the June repression in China frustrated plans for raising equity capital for that business and held up the national budget, and hence the payment of the operations profits. Mr Harpham, however, was not overly concerned.

“China is coming back to life again. In November this year we will be training up 10 members of the Chinese Agricultural Bank and we expect to gain more major sales from that,” Mr Harpham said.