Companies: FGN   

Aim-listed OverNet Data became the latest company to bemoan the state of the market by confirming its emergency acquisition talks have failed. The group now needs to raise cash to stay afloat. Leslie Copeland reports.

OverNet (OND), which provides mobile data solutions and wireless systems integration services, says talks with a third-party regarding the acquisition of a subsidiary ended in failure. Significantly, the deal would have seen the unnamed party take an equity interest in the group by providing a working capital facility.

Chairman Henry Beker, founder of bombed-out ex-FTSE 100 member Baltimore Technologies, and chief executive James Laurence must now find a source of money for working capital 'within a short timeframe'.

How hopeful they are is unclear, although they have already set about reducing OverNet's operating costs and flagged up the possibility of selling the company.

Finding a buyer could prove tough as well. Despite being a business partner of mmO2 – a member of the Compaq Solutions alliance programme – and a Microsoft Mobile Partner, OverNet has struggled to secure revenues, let alone profits.

In the year to December 2001 it lost £2.2 million on revenues of just £164,000. In 2000, its losses were £1.4 million on piffling sales of £26,000. Prior to that, it intrigued investors with a £118,000 loss on no sales at all.

The plight of OverNet mirrors that of Aim's other wireless hopefuls. MobileFuture is facing a winding up order, while RTS Networks and WAP Integrators have both collapsed.