From: TheStandardEurope.comTo: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 09/05/01 22:06
Subject: INTELLIGENCER EUROPE: Sportal plays for extra time
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THE INDUSTRY STANDARD EUROPE'S
I N T E L L I G E N C E R E U R O P E
This Week in the European Internet Economy
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Wednesday, 9 May 2001
TOP STORY:
* Sportal plays for extra time
WORTH REPEATING:
* Overweight and underweight in Japan
THE WEEK:
* News highlights
BY THE NUMBERS:
* The joys of e-mail marketing
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TOP STORY
~~~~~~~~~
Sportal plays for extra time
The firm's management goes into an emergency meeting to thrash out a
rescue package to save the online sports site. But some senior
management have already bailed
By Rick Wray
The fate of UK-based online sports company Sportal will be known in
the next 48 hours, according to sources close to the company. An
emergency board meeting will be held on Wednesday evening to discuss
the chances of rescuing the business.
Sportal, which has been generating monthly revenues of about $1
million (1.1 million euros), needs about £6 million (9.7 million
euros) in cash to take it through to profitability in the first
quarter of next year.
The uncertainty is taking its toll. Last week the group's UK managing
director Stephen Nuttall resigned from the business. It is understood
that he left because it was becoming increasingly obvious that Sportal
was not going to be the new-media heavyweight he had once envisaged.
His departure was accompanied by a round of redundancies that saw just
under 20 people go from the company's London staff of 130.
Over recent weeks privately-owned Sportal has approached many of its
existing shareholders, which include Nomura, 3i and British Sky
Broadcasting. Sources close to Sportal said that several existing
shareholders offered to loan the company the cash it needed to survive
on the condition that they took full control. But these terms were
unacceptable to the management team led by founder Rob Hersov.
As a result, Sportal has been in talks with new potential investors as
well as a handful of media groups willing to bail out the company.
But in the current depressed market, getting new investment has not
proved to be easy, the source explained. "It is a savage market and
shareholders, staff and partners need to know where the business is
going. The next 48 hours are going to be crucial."
BSkyB, with a 6 per cent stake in Sportal, is certainly not among the
shareholders willing to invest further in the company. Earlier today
the satellite broadcaster brought to a close its involvement in the
UK's new-media revolution by writing down its investment in companies
such as Sportal to zero at a cost of £16 million (26 million euros).
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WORTH REPEATING
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"People are buying Japan because they fear being underweight.
Everyone's overweight Europe and underweight Japan."
Kathy Matsui, strategist at Goldman Sachs, explaining recent fondness
of asset managers for Japanese stocks. Quoted by the Financial Times.
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THE WEEK
~~~~~~~~
OPEN PLAN: BSkyB is to integrate its interactive TV shopping portal
Open into the rest of its online operations at a cost of £40 million
(65 million euros). The move is part of a bid by the satellite
broadcaster to increase revenues from its interactive businesses and
will result in 300 job losses. BSkyB has also re-evaluated its other
new-media investments, valuing its collection of small equity stakes
in start-ups such as Sportal and Mykindaplace.com at zero.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16474,00.html
YAHOO GOODBYE: Yahoo Germany CEO Peter Würtenberger is leaving the
company to head up the portal venture being created by Bild newspaper
and T-Online. Würtenberger is the latest in a line of international
Yahoo executives to leave. European head Fabiola Arredondo quit in
February and the chiefs of the Chinese, Asian and Korean operations
have also left since January. Lars Toft, CEO of Yahoo Denmark will act
as interim chief of the German operation until a successor is found.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16445,00.html
NFACTORY FLOORED: French content distributor nFactory has been forced
to file for bankruptcy after iSyndicate Europe pulled out of a deal to
buy the company. ISyndicate Europe, a joint venture between
Bertelsmann Content Network and iSyndicate Inc, announced in January
that it would buy nFactory. But since then iSyndicate - which
aggregates and distributes content from different sources, and
operates in France, Belgium, Spain and Morocco - has fallen on hard
times and laid off more than half its staff.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16438,00.html
COMMERCIAL BREAKDOWN : T-Online, Europe's largest ISP, reported a 61
per cent sales increase to 280.2 million euros in the quarter that
ended 31 March. But the costs associated with its flat-rate offer led
to a 66.4 million euros loss (before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation) for the quarter, the company said. The company was also
hit by a sharp decrease in advertising and e-commerce revenues, which
fell by 17.7 million euros to 31.3 million euros. T-Online added
700,000 subscribers in the quarter and now has 8.7 million, 7.1
million of whom are in Germany.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16439,00.html
TERRA STRICKEN: Spanish-American portal Terra Lycos more than doubled
its net losses to $155 million (175 million euros) in the first
quarter compared with the same period last year. The loss was largely
attributed to the amortisation of the numerous acquisitions the
company made last year. But Terra Lycos also saw revenues rise to $164
million (186 million euros) compared with $33 million (37 million
euros) in the first quarter of last year.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16466,00.html
BRAND XML: A group of leading technology companies has agreed on a new
flexible standard for describing data that is transferred over the
Internet. Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox
and SAP, among others, volunteered their work on the standard, which
is called XML schema. The standard will allow Web developers to use a
common method for identifying Web data, and to more easily transfer
formatted data. The World Wide Web Consortium is overseeing the
standards process.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16434,00.html
ORACLE SPEAKS: The rarely understated CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison,
believes the business-to-business arena faces a severe Darwinian
shakeout. Only his company and rival enterprise software firm SAP will
be left standing, he said. "B-to-b should not be a new industry," he
added. "It's just conventional software companies using the Internet
to make people buy and sell more efficiently." In the past couple of
years, thousands of software companies hoped to cash in on a $6
trillion (6.8 trillion euros) revolution. Now they face a harsh
future.
http://www.thestandardeurope.com/article/display/0,1151,16462,00.html
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BY THE NUMBERS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A recent survey by Opt-in News suggests that 73 per cent of media
buyers worldwide believe permission-based e-mail marketing generates
better response rates than other marketing methods.
http://www.emarketer.com/estatnews/estats/email_marketing/20010507_optin
.html
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STAFF
~~~~~
Written by James Price, Rick Wray and Rob Jeacock. Send news tips and
press releases to [log in to unmask]
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