With $1.2M loan, bankrupt nSpire poised to retain Longmont offices

LONGMONT —  nSpire Health Inc., a developer of respiratory medical devices and software for respiratory information systems, agreed in October to vacate its Longmont headquarters as part of the company’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But with a recent court order authorizing nSpire to collect a $1.2 million loan, the company appears poised to retain its offices. 

nSpire filed for bankruptcy protection in early 2019 and in June 2019, the firm’s primary creditor Montage Capital filed court documents suggesting nSpire was unlikely to return to viability.

Bankruptcy filings from earlier this week document a loan agreement between the company and John Head, one of nSpire’s largest shareholders. Head has agreed to provide $1.2 million, which will be used to keep the business afloat and allow for the renegotiation of its lease with landlord GCC Longmont Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Vancouver private equity firm Balfour Pacific LP.

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The loan agreement “is fair and reasonable and in the best interests of the debtors [nSpire], their creditors, their estates and all parties in interest, and is essential for the continued operation of the debtors’ business and the preservation of the value of the debtors’ assets,” court documents state.

nSpire has “an immediate need to obtain funds … to, among other things, permit the orderly continuation of the operation of their businesses, to maintain business relationships with vendors, suppliers, and customers, to make payroll, to make capital expenditures, to satisfy other working capital and operational needs, to enter into a new lease agreement with GCC Longmont Holdings,” nSpire attorneys wrote in a motion asking a judge to sign off on the loan. U.S. Bankruptcy judge Michael Romero granted the motion earlier this week.

nSpire “and GCC have negotiated for months over terms of a new lease and a resolution of GCC’s administrative expenses related to hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid post-petition rent,” court filings show. “The debtors and GCC reached agreements in December of 2019, by which GCC and the debtors would execute a new lease and GCC would waive substantially all of its administrative expenses.” 

Under the loan agreement, which was signed by nSpire interim CEO John Peterson, Head can enforce liens on “substantially all of the borrower’s assets and properties and all proceeds, products, accessions, rents, and profits thereof, and the borrower’s domain names and bank account,” should nSpire not keep up its end of the deal. 

nSpire Health is based at 1830 Lefthand Circle in Longmont. The company was formed in late 2006 in Louisville and moved to Longmont in 2007.

nSpire’s phones were disconnected for months. However, a call to the company headquarters was completed Friday and a voicemail was left. Representatives did not return BizWest calls requesting comment.