BenQ Mobile will have `no financial impact,' CFO says

BenQ Corp (明基) yesterday said a shutdown of its German mobile-phone unit BenQ Mobile, which filed for insolvency protection in September, would have no impact on the company's finances.

"We already discontinued investment in the unit and wrote off the investment, so its bankruptcy will have no financial impact on the company," BenQ chief financial officer Eric Yu (游克用) said.

In Munich, BenQ Mobile's insolvency administrator Martin Prager said on Wednesday that he would shut down BenQ Mobile's office and plant after no bidders came to the unit's rescue by Dec. 31.

Prager said his job was now to find the best possible price for the company's assets.

A total of 2,305 BenQ Mobile workers have been moved to a transfer company that will help them find other jobs. About 500 have quit, while the remaining 260 employees will stay until the end of this month at the administrative department and the factory in Kamp-Lintfort, Prager said.

Separately, BenQ said in a statement that its wholly owned unit in the Netherlands, BenQ Mobile Holding BV, filed for insolvency protection on Dec. 27.

The holding firm was a paper company set up to oversee the more than 20 branch offices BenQ took over from Siemens in late 2005.

"The filing will have no new impact on BenQ's financial report," the company said in the statement.

"The holding firm's insolvency protection was filed months after BenQ Mobile's because it had to first wait until the branch offices were shut down," Yu said.