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Cash Register: 1-14 Mar, 2000

Tales from The Bubble Economy

14 Mar 2000 Lastminute jumps -- but punters get next to no shares


13 Mar 2000 250,000 flock to register for Lastminute IPO

RealCall has unveiled plans to float, with an IPO that would give it a value of around £100 million. The company develops software and services that enables people visiting Web sites to log their telephone number and receive a call from a member of staff at that site. Among its customers are Barclays Bank, KPMG and PowerGen.


E*Trade has led a $12 million investment round into ecommerce software company ObjectSwitch. Other investors in the deal are Argo Global Capital (GSM Capital Fund), Crosspoint Venture Partners, Innovacom, JAFCO, Kaufman Family LLC, New England Partner and Sevin Rosen. ObjectSwitch specialises in fault-tolerant software and one of its customers is none other than E*Trade.


Incubator fund and investment advisory group Interregnum will make its debut on AIM tomorrow (14 March). Interregnum already has an IT share portfolio in place and has negotiated the sale of one of its portfolio companies – Geoconference.


Top people's stock broker Cazenove has sunk £10 million in net investment bank, Wit Capital Europe. The two will work together on IT IPOs.


Luke Johnson, a major player in Pizza Express, is to invest some £250,000 in financial info service, ADVFN.com. Elsewhere, his Intrinsic Value investment trust is to shell out £1 million in AIM-listed Ambient.


10 Mar 2000 InterX shares rocket, buys PharmWeb

Jellyworks is pumping £2.5 million into Sportal.com. It is also shelling out £200,000 in businessesforsale.com, as part of the company’s £1.7 million financing round. Businessesforsale.com is a kind of

Dalton’s Weekly

for the Internet, only with much fewer readers. It claims 7,000-8,000 visits a week from people checking out its listing of 10,500 private businesses.


NewMedia Spark has taken a 20 per cent slice of Netwalla.com for £2 million. Netwalla aims to build a b2b trading exchange between businesses in Britain and South Asia. It is also building a community site for Asian consumers living in the UK and Europe.


9 Mar 2000

NetDoctor.co.uk, the healthcare portal, has struck a deal to provide content for allcures.com. The deal will allow surfers to access medical information from the UK online pharmacy.


So now Lastminute is worth £526 million

Job recruitment site interviewme.co.uk is to give away shares as an incentive for candidates to sign up for its service. The venture, which describes itself as "an online Website", will give its first 100,000 candidates the chance to register for shares should the company IPO.


Easynet today raised £51.8 million through a share placing organised by broker ABN Amro. The British ISP is to spend the dough on developing a new DSL network in Germany and beefing up its other networks.


Redbus Interhouse washes its smalls in public
IT Network eyes up US market
World Online buys Localtel, launches unmetered service
8 Mar 2000

Windrivers, the massive Windows support site/community, has sold itself to Service911.com, a fellow US computer support Web site. Terms of the stock deal were unspecified. Windrivers claims three million unique individual users per month.


7 Mar 2000

Spanish online bank Uno-e is to buy Dublin rival first-e for £400 million. The deal, believed to be the first Web banking merger, will be called Unofirst, and has more than £305 million ready to spend on expansion in Europe, Latin America, the US and Asia. Media group Pearson plans to launch an online educational network with AOL. Marjorie Scardino, Pearson CEO, yesterday said she expected Pearson to be the ISP giant's "preferred education partner" after a preliminary deal with the company.


California hot-stock Benchmark Capital is creating a $500 million venture capital fund to spend in Europe. The Internet backer plans to set up an office in London to spot promising Web start-ups. Its previous investments include e-Bay and Ariba.


eBay will today announce a deal with AutoTrader.com to set up a used-car auction Website. Online auction house eBay brings ten million buyers and sellers to the venture, while Atlanta-based AutoTrader claims five million monthly visitors.


6 Mar 2000 Lastminute:the backlash begins

NewMedia SPARK, the Internet investment vehicle, is stumping £85 million for the acquisition of Scandinavian Net incubator fund Cell Internet Commerce Development. At the same time it is raising £50 million in cash through a new share issue. The company has also announced the £500,000 cash purchase of a 4 per cent stake in ADVFM.com, a "UK financial portal which intends to use advanced gaming technology developed by its parent company On-Line plc ("On-Line") to enhance the viewing experience of its users".


Boots, Britain's biggest pharmacist, is to spend £11 million on a health Web site for men.


Salon.com is to "probably" launch in the UK in September, "with a top level local team and several key partnerships in place," according to

The Independent

.


Eurobet, Coral's tax-free online betting operation, launched its UK service on Friday (4 Mar). It has signed up sponsorship deals with the official Manchester United web site, and the Arrows F1 racing team.


2Beton.com is joining the rush of gambling sites aiming to float on the stock market. Its IPO, planned for May, will value it at £20m.


3 Mar 2000 Sugar flogs Spurs(.co.uk) to BSkyB
Liberty Surf takes X-Stream measures
Don't believe the Web sales hype
2 Mar 2000 City bookies squabble over £1bn Lastminute price tag
1 Mar 2000 Lastminute not worth £400m, after all
Super soaraway Airtours banks on the Net

365 Corp has stumped up £4.5 million (in highly-rated paper) for FenFones Communications and £2 million cash for Datacom Networks.


Two weeks ago, e-district.net, owner of the Leisure District web site, told

The Register

it

wanted to raise £15m-£20m in an AIM float

capitalising it at more than £100m. We're not impressed with the Leisure District entertainment/community site, but hey, what do we know: yesterday, the company placed £29.3 million through an institutional placing prior to its AIM debut. This values the e-district.net at an astonishing £149.7 million. Dealing kicks off on March 7. When we should see another big ramp. ®

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