The joint receivers for Horizon Communications have said they are dealing with parties interested in buying the company or its assets.

Charles Thresh, senior managing director, financial advisory at Teneo (Bermuda) was made joint receiver with Michael Morrison on January 5 “under a debenture held by a lender of Horizon, which is an affiliate of a Bermuda investment fund”.

The Royal Gazette understands that staff who were laid off at Horizon Communications shortly after the receivers took over were issued redundancy notices on May 5 and 9 but have not yet received their termination certificates.

A source at Horizon, which provides high-speed internet access to businesses and residential customers across the island, said staff were told that the company will be dealing with redundancy and any other due payments rather than the receivers.

Mr Thresh issued a statement to The Royal Gazette saying: “Since their appointment, the joint receivers have been dealing with parties interested in a purchase of the business and/or the assets and we hope to be able to issue a statement in that regard in the coming days.

“Any claims for any arrears of pay, redundancy pay, pay in lieu of notice and holiday pay are claims against the company and are not dealt with by the joint receivers.”

The source said that staff continue to seek clarity regarding any owed payments and clarity over who is responsible for fulfilling the employees’ contractual obligations.

They said that staff were called into a meeting by Teneo at 2pm last Thursday when they were given a promise of certificates of termination to follow.

Mr Thresh continued in his statement: “Shortly after the joint receivers’ appointment in January, a proportion of the workforce was laid off due to limited funding.

“Those not laid off continued to work and operations have been maintained while the joint receivers sought a buyer for the business. Services to customers were largely unaffected by the appointment of the joint receivers.

“Since then, some employees have returned on a full or part time basis as the needs of the business required. However, under Bermuda law any employee who is laid off for four months is automatically terminated and that provision affected some of the workforce [last] week, on the expiry of the statutory period.

“We are continuing to trade for the time being and some of the team remain employed for that purpose.

“The joint receivers are grateful to the current and former employees of Horizon for their efforts and understanding during the period of the receivership.”

Teneo came on board soon after the company said it expected to have to make staff redundant owing to difficulties securing a second round of funding. Horizon got initial funding from the Bermuda Infrastructure Fund, which was established in 2018.

Horizon founder and chief executive Gilbert “Artie” Darrell said at the time the firm was working “diligently” with the receivers to try to resolve the situation, saying there would be no interruption to service.

Wave Bermuda Ltd launched trading as Horizon and later changed its name to Horizon Communications. In December it had about 24 local staff and six local and overseas contractors.

The company is one of a few to benefit from investment from the BIF, managed by Fortress Investment Group.

BIF was set up in 2018 and attracted about $88 million in funds from sources including international companies and, for the establishment of the fund, the Government, to help to finance Bermuda infrastructure-related projects.

The Government announced that the Regulatory Authority had issued Horizon with a communication licence effective from August 24, 2020, the same time it issued licences to two other companies also operating selected communications services in Bermuda.

At the time of licensing, Mr Darrell declined to reveal how much the BIF had committed to Horizon, but said the capital needed to launch the network amounted to “many millions of dollars”.

Mr Darrell did not respond to questions by press time.