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First Coffee -- Sitel's Refinancing -- LoJack For Laptops?
By David Sims
david@firstcoffee.biz
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an iPod mix, current song Jerry Springer by Weird Al Yankovic:
This came out last Friday afternoon, so maybe you missed it (too), but customer support outsourcer Sitel Corp., has announced that its completed a $145 million refinancing package, consisting of a senior revolving credit facility of $90 million and two term loans totaling $55 million.
Proceeds from the new financing will be used to retire the Companys 9 ¼ percent senior subordinated notes, due March 2006, replace the existing credit facility due December 2005, and provide funds for working capital and other general corporate purposes, according to company officials.
The senior subordinated notes will be redeemed in September 2005 at the face value of $83.8 million, plus interest. The refinancing will result in an estimated non-cash charge in the third quarter of 2005 of approximately $0.4 million to write-off remaining debt issuance costs.
A couple weeks ago the Omaha, Nebraska-based announced Q2 net income of $3.2 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $2.5 million, or 3 cents per share, for Q2 2004.
LoJack for Laptops does it work? According to an evaluation by David Andelman, yes it does. If you dont mind the way the system works, it might be a good idea for you.
Absolute Software's LoJack for Laptops used to be called CompuTrace, Andelman says. He installed it from a disk, registered it with the office in Vancouver, did a test call to report it stolen and lo and behold, they told me just where my laptop was located. It worked perfectly.
It costs $49.95 for year or $99 for three years. When its stolen and you report it the service locates it, notifies its recovery team, all ex-cops, who call local law enforcement and give them to the location of the stolen laptop. Yes, the thief has to go online for it to be located.
"At the beginning, we wondered whether law enforcement would really care about laptops," John Livingston, Aboslutes CEO told Andelman. But they were very supportive. Property theft is a situation where they don't get a lot of success. But this is stolen property with a built-in electronic tip where it's located. They also realized that, in 5 per cent of the cases, the location they go to other criminal activity is taking place."
For instance, Andelman says, a distress call came from a laptop in McKinney, Texas. The local police stumbled onto a big chop-shop location with drugs and weapons. They also got the stolen computer back.
The software remains in place even on a laptop which has been stripped and the hard disk reformatted. Which is Andelmans concern do you really want a third-party, basically ineradicable set of eyes in your computer? Absolute can wipe your entire hard drive on your say-so, of course, if you have sensitive information thats been stolen along with the laptop, and wouldnt that be a nifty challenge for hackers, breaking into that command?
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