Eckoh Technologies Share News (ECK)

Redstone, the heavily indebted IT and telecoms group, has secured up to £6m in new funding and renegotiated some of its debt facilities.The group has raised £6m through the issue of a loan note to SVG Investment Managers and Gartmore Investment. The issue will be in two tranches of £3m, with the provision for a further £2m to be made available if necessary.The loan note can be converted into shares at a conversion price of 1.37p per share. As full conversion by SVG or Gartmore could lead to either one of them holding more than 30% of the issued share capital of Redstone, the group will be seeking shareholder approval to waive the obligation for a full bid to be made should either investor breach the 30% threshold.Redstone has also renegotiated the terms of a loan arrangement with speech recognition specialist Eckoh.The £2.7m loan with Eckoh is held by Redstone subsidiary Symphony Telecom Holdings, a company previously owned by Eckoh.Eckoh will receive interest on the loan monthly, in arrears, with a £1m repayment of the capital due on 1 October 2011, while the rest of the loan is due to be paid off on 1 October 2012.After agreeing to restructure the loan Eckoh will receive an arrangement fee of £0.53m, of which £0.18m was paid in July 2009 while a further £0.125m will be payable immediately.The remainder of the fee is due when the loan is due to be terminated in October 2012.In a separate announcement Redstone said that Stephen Yapp will be joining the board as a non-executive director prior to replacing Alan Coppin as executive chairman.Coppin, appointed as an interim chairman, will step down from the board once the company’s accounts have been posted to shareholders.Non-executive director Tim Sherwood will become non-executive director of the group with immediate effect.