Peregrine Says It Expects to File Under Chapter 11

Peregrine Entertainment Ltd., a small Los Angeles entertainment firm that was a high flier in the stock market in mid-1986, said Tuesday that it expects to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

At the same time, the company said it had already filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors for one of its units, National Peregrine.

The parent company, an independent developer and distributor of television programming, said negotiations to restructure its debt have not been successful.

The company did not reveal the size of its total debt, which was listed at $17.2 million on Dec. 31, 1987. It suffered a net loss of $4.3 million on $9.2 million in revenue in 1987, the last period for which it made a full-year report.

Peregrine said Tuesday that it believed that relief from creditors’ claims has become necessary to achieve a reorganization in the interest of shareholders.

The company, whose stock has been trading recently at about $1 a share in the over-the-counter market, ran up to about $25 in the summer of 1986 amid much attention from the financial press and securities analysts.

Neil Rosenstein, Peregrine’s chairman, president, chief executive, treasurer and 32% stockholder, could not be reached Tuesday for comment on the firm’s current situation. He also heads publicly traded Jackpot Enterprises, Las Vegas, the dominant operator of slot machines located in Nevada supermarkets and drugstores.

Peregrine owns rights to several hundred films, some acquired through purchases of movie libraries and others when the company bought American National Enterprises in 1986. Peregrine itself made four movies for television between 1984 and 1986. Later it switched its emphasis to producing first-run programming for syndication to TV stations and licensing films for TV showings, a strategy that did not do well.

In 1986, it made one feature film, “Apology,” for foreign theatrical release and domestic premiere on Home Box Office. It subsequently stopped producing theatrical films, blaming high costs and high risks.

After delaying its 1987 financial results until last April 18, the company disclosed that its outside auditors, Laventhol & Horwath, had given it a qualified opinion, suggesting that the company’s financial health was questionable. The accounting firm said Peregrine’s continued existence in its present form depended on its arranging adequate financing and returning to profitability.

Rosenstein blamed the loss on a poor market for the firm’s TV and film products, on which it took $6.2 million in writedowns in 1987.