TT Club writes off investment in Bolero.net venture

TT Club writes off investment in Bolero.net venture    Through Transport Club, the London-based insurance mutual, has written off its investment in Bolero.net, the five-year-old, money-losing electronic communications provider that allows paperless negotiable bills of lading.
   “We have decided that it would now be prudent and appropriate to reduce the book value of that investment to nil, and this is shown in our financial statements,” said David Thomson, chairman of TT Club. He added that Bolero.net continues to work with its customers in the banking, corporate and logistics sectors to develop products that will facilitate paperless trading in the future.
   TT Club had invested more than '1 million ($1.8 million) in Bolero.net since it was launched in late 1999.
   The mutual’s share of Bolero.net’s losses last year amounted to about $1 million.
   TT Club was, alongside the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (S.W.I.F.T.), one of the two original backers of the electronic documentation venture. In 2000, Apax Partners, an equity investment group, also acquired shares in the venture.