This article is more than 1 year old
Net Finance News: 1-7 Aug 1999
intro
6 Aug, 1999 Online shopping kids are full of beenz
Wall St tumbles as Net stocks stumble
Ofex-listed
EarthPort.com plc-- which operates fundraising lotteries on the Net -- has appointed Andrew Millard as MD of its EarthPort Entertainments Ltd subsidiary and a director of the main board.
United News and Media
(CMP's new owner) is buying an American online photo agency called
Definitive Stockfor $30 million in cash and shares. It will combine the one year-old royalty free company with its
Visual Communicationssubsidiary and may float the enlarged entity as a pureplay Internet company, according to the
FT.
James Brearley & Son
is offering real-time online share dealing for retail punters. Called ICON Personal Share Dealing, this service costs £25 per year joining fee and £20 per trade.
Sign up in Augustand you don't have to pay the annual fee, the
Investors Chroniclesays.
AIM-listed ISP
Easynetshares are "high enough" at 745p, the
Investors Chronicleadvises. Easynet is "doing well, and parts of its market are here to stay, but priced at seven times sales and with thin profits there is room for a little caution".
New AIM listing
StartIT.com, wants to invest in start-up IT and internet ventures. It wants to do one deal a month from October and its investments will range from £30K to £150K, the
Investors Chroniclereveals. The company has raised £1.8 million through a share placing at 5p. Shares are currently trading at 7.5p.
FortuneCity.com
is buying a 20 per cent stake in Bravenet.com for $1 million. It has an option to buy the rest of the company. FortuneCity will offer Bravenet's web design tools and personalised message forms to its 3.1 million members.
5 Aug, 1999 Softbank closes $600m VC fund
Barclays
says it is the UK's biggest Internet bank with 400,000 customers -- twice as much as its nearest, unnamed rival and six times as much as Egg, Prudential's extravagantly loss-making subsidiary.
Fortune City founder chases silver surfers
3i drums beat for Jungle Online
George Soros wannabes can trade in foreign currency on the Web following
GlobalNet Financial.com's decision to unleash an Internet FX trading platform on Freeserve's Money Channel. Matchbook FX will enable independent foreign exchange traders, institutions, businesses and private investors to deal on live prices. UK private investors will be required to hand over a minimum deposit of £6000 and the minimum trade will be £12,000. Anyone who fancies a dabble can hedge their bets between the US dollar, sterling, yen, Swiss franc and the Euro.
Mitsubishi
has decided to close down its subscription-based financial ISP Infotrade at the end of September. The announcement follows an earlier announcement that the Japanese concern was closing MENET -- an ISP aimed at SMEs.
Net IPOs slump on first day trading
Wall St brutalises net shares
4 Aug 1999 EarthWeb snaps up Sysopt and CodeGuru
Yahoo! wants Excite but @Home can stay at home
3 Aug, 1999 Fire stops (game)play.com
Sportingbet.com (UK) PLC
, the Alderney-based e-bookmaker, is in the final stages of securing a contract to enter the lucrative Japanese gambling market. The OFEX-listed company said it was in final joint venture negotiations with a leading Japanese company enable the sportingbet.com to launch its services into the specialised Japanese market. The sports betting market in Japan is estimated to be more than £100 billion compared to the UK which nets around £7 billion. "If we were able to achieve a penetration of 0.5 per cent, this would translate into turnover of £500 million and gross profits of £30 million per year," said Mark Blandford, MD of sportingbet.com.
Media group
Pearsonis doubling this year's Internet-related spending to £120 million - £30 million more than it had originally budgeted for. Pearsons already has more than 1200 Web sites already orbiting cyberspace, and it's hoping to cash in on the e-commerce revolution. Its flagship site, FT.com, is set to earn £6 million in advertising revenue this year, an increase of £4 million on last year. Pretty puny really, when you consider that this is the UK's biggest Web site, in advertising terms. Pearson's international business sites generate 40 million page views a month, of which FT.com accounts for 12 million.
UK domain name reseller
VirtualInternet.netis raising £1.17 million through a placing of new shares on AIM. The highly acquisitive company lost £1.083 million on sales of £355,849 for the its maiden interims (covering the six months to April), 1999 but most of the losses come down to acquisition related goodwill write-downs and write-offs.
Home Internet take-up rockets in UK
2 Aug 1999 Free-ISP boom brings Easynet rich pickings
AIM gets a new member in the shape of
Netvest.com. Described by the
FTas a vehicle for investing in small internet-related businesess, this is more of a Mini than a Merc. The float for the start-up will value the company at £1.14 million, while net proceeds will be only £730K. Is the stock market really an appropriate way of raising finance for such a small enterprise? Presumably, the investments are already lined up, because the money won't go too far. Netvest is chaired by Andrew Balcombe, founder of an Internet dating agency called Matchnet. Netvest is advised by Grant Thornton.
British online games portal
gameplay.comwill be valued at £53.6 million when it begins trading on AIM today. The company originally wanted to raise
£21 million through the IPO, but it is now scaling up for an extra £10 million, following "very strong demand for the shares".
1 Aug 1999
Online auctioneer
icollectionis moving to the London Stock Exchange and -- probably -- Germany's Neuer Market too, the
Mail on Sundayreports. Shares in the British tiddler are currently dealt on Ofex, the UK's smallest stock market, where it is currently valued at £40 million. Not bad for a company that lost £1.13 million on sales of only £500,000. The company is advised by Durlacher.
31 July 1999 Funmail
, the UK Internet-based email service, has postponed its AIM flotation, on selling 20 per cent of the company to Eden Investments for £6.25 million. This values Funmail at £31.3 million -- the top end of market cap projections -- according to the
FT.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
