AMSTERDAM, 21/03/01 - Electronic publisher AND, currently operating under protection from creditors, may be rescued by Roosland, subsidiary of investment company Indofin. Roosland is however setting a firm condition that the present owners of convertible bonds exchange these for shares.

AND's 50 million guilder bond issue is a millstone round the neck of the troubled company. The question is whether the bondholders will be prepared to exchange their bonds, which now deliver a relatively safe yield, for shares which will be newly issued. Under the plan, they would receive 500 million newly issued shares. Because the company has been doing scarcely any trading since its suspension of payments, the value of the shares would be difficult to determine.

"Supplementary financing is absolutely necessary," as administrator J. Princen sketched the situation yesterday. Later, there is to be a rights issue, under which the shares would go to Roosland. It is not the intention that Roosland should receive a majority stake, according to Princen.

A bondholders meeting will be held in two to three weeks. "This conversion of bonds into shares is the beginning," according to Princen. How much money Roosland will have to invest subsequently was not revealed.