internet.com Corp., the publisher of InternetNews.com, reported a 383%
increase in revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 1999.
Revenues for the
period were a record $7.5 million; for the same period in 1998, the revenues
were $1.6 million for the same period last year. Net loss for the fourth
quarter, excluding amortization of intangibles, was $482,000, or 2 cents per
share, compared to $723,000, or 4 cents a share, for the same period last year.
Including amortization of intangibles, net loss for the fourth quarter ended
December 31, 1999 was $ 3.9 million, or 17 cents a share.
Those numbers beat analysts’ forecasts of a 4-cent loss before one-time items.
For the year ended December 31, 1999, internet.com (INTM) revenues
were $16.1 million, a 272 percent increase over revenues of $4.3 million for the
comparable period in 1998.
“It was an extraordinary quarter for internet.com,” stated internet.com
Chairman and CEO Alan M. Meckler. “We continued to expand our multiple revenue
streams. The acquisition of InternetNewsBureau.com, which provides online press
distribution services, adds yet another significant revenue opportunity for
internet.com as we expand our e-business service offerings. We also completed
the formation of internet.com Venture Fund II LLC in November 1999.
In
addition, we continued to expand our world-class proprietary content. Our
strategic acquisitions of LinuxToday.com, LinuxCentral.com and LinuxStart.com
mark our commitment to the needs of the important Linux and Open Source
communities. On December 1, 1999, we filed a registration statement for a
proposed follow-on public offering of common stock to raise additional capital
to continue the expansion of our business. We plan to use the net proceeds
primarily for potential strategic acquisitions, venture capital investments and
general corporate purposes. We are pleased that Chase H&Q, Robertson Stephens,
U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. and William Blair & Company are managing the
underwriting group for this offering.”
During the fourth quarter, internet.com completed the acquisitions of:
devWire.com (its network of sites include: ASPWire.com, CEWire.com, SQLWire.com
and VBWire.com), InternetNewsBureau.com, LinuxStart.com, LinuxToday.com,
LinuxCentral.com, SharkyExtreme.com and Solarisguide.com. Internationally, the
Company launched Germany.internet.com and SouthAfrica.internet.com, bringing
the total number of international editions to 11. A joint venture agreement was
formed with VNU International to jointly operate local internet.com branded Web
sites in the U.K., Scandinavia, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, The
Netherlands and Italy. The two companies plan to work together to launch
additional internet.com country-specific Web sites in the near future. In
addition, a content agreement with Yahoo! Asia, Yahoo! Singapore and Yahoo!
Hong Kong was announced in November. In January 2000, internet.com announced
plans to launch additional international sites in Korea and Taiwan. These
acquisitions, international expansion and continued organic growth have
increased total monthly views for internet.com’s network of Web sites and
related Internet media properties to over 150 million.
internet.com Venture Fund I LLC and internet.com Venture Fund II LLC continued
to expand their portfolios of early stage business-to-business content Internet
companies. Venture Fund I made the following investments during the fourth
quarter: AuctionRover.com, GoPDA.com network, BuyBuddy.com and workz.com.
Venture Fund II made the following investments during the fourth quarter:
AdvertisingConcepts.com, B2BExplorer.com, FoodService.com, Gourmetnet.com,
HowStuffWorks.com, Jinvestor.com, LatinVision.com, LawBooks.com,
List-Universe.com, Milesandpoints.com, NationalContractors.com, Psylum.com and
the-sticks.com. inte
rnet.com will continue to follow the path of CMGI (Nasdaq:
CMGI) and Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) with the added benefit of being
a public operating company in the Internet space that also extends value to its
stockholders by having a successful Internet venture capital arm.
