Page 127 - A Life - my Live - my path

My career - Horizon ICT

We had to complete the project within 9 months, in order to
be ready for the beginning of 2000. I planned to use my own
funds. We started work, and by the end of 1999, it was clear
that we hadn't finished. We still needed 2 or 3 months to
finalize all development and testing. Commercially, this was
not a problem, as the first 3 months of the year are not
conducive to the sale of distribution or accounting solutions.
In most cases, during this period, companies are focused on
their year-end results and finalizing their balance sheets.
The problem was that shareholders' equity had been fully
invested, and cash was at a low to finish the job. I therefore
decided to make good progress on the 1999 balance sheet so
that it would be ready very early in January 2000, and as
I knew it was going to be very good, I applied for a €125,000

107
bridge loan from the BBL , a bank I'd been working with
for many years.
I showed the bank manager the balance sheet, explained
our situation and he confirmed that he didn't see any
problem with the loan I was applying for. With no news after
10 days, I contacted him by phone, and to my surprise,
I learned that the application had been refused. Since BBL
had been taken over by the Dutch ING 108 group, it had been
decided not to invest in intangible assets.
This was the start of a downward spiral.

107 Banque Bruxelles Lambert
108 Internationale Nederlanden Groep
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