Yahoo!, Broadcast.com beat expectations

Yahoo! and Broadcast.com both posted strong financial results, yesterday. Which was just as well since they're both about to merge, if Broadcast.com shareholders approve the deal. Yahoo!'s second quarter, ended 30 June, saw the company record profits of $28.3 million on revenues of $115.24 million, an increase of 156 per cent on the $45 million revenue it posted for the same period last year. Of course, the company made a number of major acquisitions during the period, including GeoCities and Online Anywhere, the result of which was to push its profit for the period into a loss of $15 million. Broadcast.com's Q2 results included a loss of $1.9 million on revenues of $13.5 million, a 138 per cent increase on Q2 1998's revenue ($5.9 million). For the same period last year, the company lost $3.5 million. The latest loss was just over half of what Wall Street had been anticipating, coming in at five cents a share, compared to the nine cents a share loss analysts had expected. Broadcast.com shareholders are due to vote on 20 July on whether to accept Yahoo!'s proposed acquisition of the company through a stock swap. Yahoo!'s original offer, made in April, values Broadcast.com at $5.7 billion. The deal would see each Broadcast.com share swapped for 0.77 Yahoo! shares, which is exactly how the two stocks matched up at close of play yesterday. ®