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Looking for progress? None yet

It's been a month since I checked in with Look Communications on thesale of its wireless and network assets.And the progress since then? To an outsider, seemingly not much. Aspokesman for the Milton, Ont. company said Monday that negotiationsare still going on with an unnamed number of bidders.“Noquestion it's taken longer than expected,” said Peter Block, “but the(court-appointed) monitor is still working with the company and stillreviewing the bids, clarifying any terms or conditions attached to anyof the bids.””There's no final decisions yet, because obviouslyonce that happens we'll have a formalized announcement . . . The factthat there's still a review going on says there's still bids beingreviewed.” Bids were due Feb. 16, but after March 9, bidders couldwithdraw their offers. The fact that there's still some talking goingon suggests bids are still on the table, Block said.The timelag suggests the bids were insufficient, I suggested. “If the bids werecompletely insufficient or unacceptable I doubt it would take that longto reach that conclusion,” Block replied, “so the company woud havemade a decision not to proceed with any.”Look is publiclytraded on the Toronto venture exchange. As such, Block pointed out “there's always a legal obligation on the part of the company todisclose any material development that takes place. And, additionally,you've got a court-appointed monitor that's part of the process . . .and material development would be we don't have any bids that aredeemed acceptable.”Any negotiations going on are not on price,Block suggested, which had to be in on Feb. 16, but over details onterms and conditions such that the monitor can make a recommendation toLook's board.Is the company close to making an announcement?”The only thing that matters is are they going to do a deal,” Blockreplied, “and until there is one it doesn't matter how close you are.”Just ask IBM and Sun Microsystems, or Yahoo and Microsoft or …

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