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'-- _lU.S. company used NovAtel loan to pay off creditors, papers show□ Minister backtracks on statementEDMONTON (CP) — A U.S. company that got a $60-miliion taxpayer-backed loan from NovAtel to set up cellular telephone systems used the money to keep other creditors at bay, documents obtained by the New ’Democrats show.Cellular Information Systems, registered in Delaware, spent NovAtel’s money covering a $5.5 million loss and its $46.7 million deficit, according to papers * filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington.“Here we have a ludicrous situation of Alberta taxpayers helping an American company hold off other American creditors,” NDP Leader Hay Martin said Wednesday. “They weren’t building cellular phone systems, they were paying off other debts. Why inGod’s name they (NovAtel) would get into this I don’t know.”On Tuesday, Liberal Leader Laurence Decore tabled documents indicating NovAtel gave money-losing General Cellular Corp. of California a $20 million operational loan on top of a $58 million loan to buy a cellular system.Technology Minister Fred Stewart acknowledged Wednesday it is normal for NovAtel to give U.S. companies loans not just to build cellular phone systems but to stay in business.“Their primary objectives were, not to promote economic development in the United States, but to secure money owing,” he said.He had said in the legislature Tuesday that no capital loans were made. But Wednesday he said he wasmistaken and he didn’t tn
Newspaper Details
Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge, Alberta, CA
Thu, Jun 11, 1992
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Chinook A.
AB, USA 20 Oct 2022
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