Freeserve shares fall on Goldman Sachs research note

Freeserve shares fell four pence to 202.5 pence yesterday on the back of an unhelpful Goldman Sachs research note. The investment bank kicked off its coverage of Freeserve, the British template for free ISPs by making it a "Market Performer" rating and has "a downside price target of 200 pence", financial newswire AFX reports. Goldman Sachs said Freeserve needed to justify its current high valuation by focusing on "gaining preferential broadband access, moving further into e-commerce, developing the brand and growing and scaling the organisation". Yes, but isn't Freeserve doing all these things, already? It's going to have to do a lot more than that to make it worth a couple of billion quid, As we've written on several occasions The Register also reckons the Freeserve market cap is too high -- it seems ludicrous for the market to value a non-paying Freeserve customer as the same as a fee-paying cable subscriber. On the upside, Freeserve has huge market presence (but how much more momentum), and very deep pockets, courtesy of its recent IPO. And it can always call on Dixons for off-the-shelf ecommerce anchor tenancies. ® Daily Net finance news from The Register