There are only two marquee IPOs this week, and for a change neither is
an Internet company.
But even Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) and World Wrestling Federation Entertainment (WWFE) — both of which debuted strong Tuesday — have Internet stories to tell.
While the vast majority of revenue for the homemakers’ content and
merchandising giant formed by Chairman and CEO Martha Stewart still
comes from magazine and book publishing, the Internet is now the
company’s second-most lucrative and fastest-growing business segment.
Last year 8.1% of the company’s $180 million in revenue came from its
marthastewart.com. In the first six months of 1999, that figure
grew to 12.5%, surpassing the revenue percentages generated by
television (11.5%) and merchandising (10.3%). Publishing, meanwhile, has
fallen as a percentage of total revenue from 81.8% in 1997 to 70.5% in
1998 to 65.7% through Q2 this year.
What’s really interesting is that, in raw dollars, Internet revenue
growth outpaced publishing revenue growth from the first half of 1998 to
the first half of this year, gaining $9.6 million to $8.6 million,
respectively.
It might not be tomorrow or next year, but Martha Stewart Living
Omnimedia may someday be seen as an Internet play.
The cyberization (yes, I made up a word) of World Wrestling Federation
Entertainment is coming along far more slowly. The company’s
site drew 1.6 million unique visitors in June, making it the
fourth-ranked sports-only Web site, trailing ESPN, SportsLineUSA (SPLN)
and CNNSI, according to Media Metrix.
Yet the WWF seems to be having trouble monetizing new users. While the
number of visitors nearly quadrupled from June 1998 to June 1999
(401,000 to 1.6 million), and the number of registered users zoomed from
14,000 to 489,000, merchandise sales rose from $157,000 to $207,000, a
gain of only 32%.
There actually was a “name” Internet company slated to go public this
week, but it postponed its IPO on Monday.
The move by PCQuote.com (PCQT), one of a number of companies providing
financial information online, comes after the company dropped its price
range for shares from $12 to $14 in June, when it filed an S-1,
to $8 to $10. The company, owned by HyperFeed, planned to sell 5 million
shares in hopes of raising $45 million.
Company officials sited “depressed market conditions, especially in the
financial services sector,” as the reason for the postponement.
Numbers from internet.com’s weekly Internet StockTracker newsletter bear
out PCQuote.com’s assessment. Over the past six weeks, the financial
news/services sector has been the worst-performing of the 12 sectors
tracked by the newsletter.
Through last Wednesday, 12 of the 18 companies in the Financial
News/Services sector had lost value in the previous month, including
E-Loan (EELN), down 38%; its competitor mortgage.com (MDCM), down 30% and Intelligent Life (ILIF), down 29.5%.
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