PopMail.com, Inc., an online fan club marketing company based in Irving Texas, has announced that it is exploring opportunities to divest its fully-owned Bellevue-based subsidiary IZ.com.
IZ.com is an affinity digital publishing company and produces the ZDNet AnchorDesk newsletter for Ziff Davis. PopMail is looking at several divestiture options including the sale of IZ.com to the current management team.
According to PopMail.com CEO Gary Schneider, the IZ.com business model of creating newsletters and e-Business applications for high-end companies does not fit the business model of PopMail.com.
“While IZ.com has revenue, its current revenue does not cover expenses and thus is in a different stage of development compared to other PopMail companies. It is cost-prohibitive to execute on different business models with divisions in different cities where efficiencies can’t be realized,” says Schneider “It’s important that we focus on one business model and place all resources behind that model. It is our plan to be cash flow positive by 2nd Quarter of 2001 and the following step is being taken: The Company will no longer support any business opportunities that are still in development or not cash positive.”
As a result of the decision, IZ.com CEO Jesse Berst has resigned from the board of PopMail.com effective immediately. The move Berst to explore a possible transaction for IZ.com without any conflict of interest.
The IZ.com CEO seems optimistic about the Company’s prospects. “I believe strongly in IZ.com’s ability to achieve our goal, based on our success with AnchorDesk and our relationship with Vignette.”