III sales flat as a pancake

Interactive Investor International (III) is the UK's most popular financial news portal people, but quite not as popular as it used to be. The company saw Q3 page impressions ease to 42.2 million from 43.4 million the previous quarter.

The company blames the lack of new issues for keeping away the day traders and other e-greedy people. Q3 Revenues were flat as a pancake at £1.8 million, but on the bright side losses for nine months fell from £13.4 million to £4 million. Presumably iits spending a lot less on marketing. Also it has shut down its ten-man operation in Hong Kong (it's keeping South Africa).

The company also retains a huge war chest, £64 million cash, collected from the IPO in February. This is a comfortable sum to help the company in attempting its transition from online finance magazine to full-blown financial services/share trading portal. Already it is flogging mortgages online.

However, it will have an awful lot to do climb back into the affections of the City - shares are currently languishing at under 50p, less than a third of the 150p price struck at IPO, and way way down on the 415p surreal high in March, when dotcom fever was at its peak. ®