Infospace .... verlassen da die Ratten ein sinkendes Schiff !

[Ralph]

Ich komme zwar etwas spät mit dieser Nachricht, da ich INSP nicht so aktiv verfolge, aber die News, dass CEO, CFO und COO gleichzeitig abdanken wollen, hinterlässt doch ein mehr als schales Gefühl .... zumindest bei mir.

Dann noch jede Menge Downgrades letzte Woche.

Ralph, schlimmes befürchtend !

[Ralph]

InfoSpace Tops Analysts' Estimates as Revenue Rises Sharply

By Erica M. Berardi
Editorial Assistant
1/29/01 5:38 PM ET

Earnings Scorecard
Actual Estimated* Year-Ago
$0.04 $0.01 -$0.03

InfoSpace (INSP:Nasdaq - news) reported fourth-quarter earnings today that beat Wall Street's slightly lowered estimates by 3 cents, as revenue more than doubled from the year-ago period.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, InfoSpace earned $12.6 million, or 4 cents a share, up from last year's fourth-quarter loss of $7.8 million, or 3 cents a share, excluding noncash charges and other items in both periods. Twenty analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company, which is based in Bellevue, Wash., to earn a penny a share in the latest fourth quarter.

The company, a provider of cross-platform merchant and consumer infrastructure services, also posted fourth-quarter revenue of $66.1 million, up from $29.4 million for the same period one year ago.
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Ralph

[Ralph]

InfoSpace Keeps the Lions at Bay for 30 Days

By Tish Williams
Senior Writer
1/29/01 9:24 PM ET

Today is no good for me. Could we reschedule this mauling for 30 days out?

The Coliseum was packed with jostling analysts in pinstripe togas. Eyes toward the heavens, InfoSpace (INSP:Nasdaq - news - boards) executives walked into the dusty heat of the conference call stage to a chorus of howls. Founder Naveen Jain looked up to the Street spectators, flicked a bit of the thick A-1 sauce coating from his face and stared at a dozen snarling lions, pacing yards away behind thick bars. With his chirpy cadence and unflappable positive attitude, Jain looked up into the crowd and asked for a reprieve -- a 30-day stay of execution.

Sure, what the heck. It'll give us time to whip up our classic Bloody Mary mix.

InfoSpace delivered Street-beating fourth-quarter results. With a profit of 4 cents a share on $66.1 million in revenue, it topped by a penny the First Call/Thomson Financial consensus estimate. It promised to double year 2000's wireless revenue of $18 million in 2001. Voice-recognition products will be hitting the streets in the second quarter. But every muted spectator understood its potentially fatal transgression: last week's simultaneous loss of Rolodex-wielding Vodafone (VOD:NYSE ADR - news - boards) heavyweight Arun Sarin as CEO, acquired-Go2Net Chairman Russell Horowitz from the COO spot and CFO Rand Rosenberg, who would have been quite useful on an earnings call.

All of which left newly reappointed CEO Jain to fight with the wimpy weapons he had on hand, and promise better-defined 2001 guidance in 30 days.

Internet-company meat. Fatty and rich when aged properly.

What numbers Jain and his disciples wielded were distressing. InfoSpace expects a 14-cent-a-share loss in 2001, after a profit of 14 cents per in 2000. You can bet the usual dot-com conditions are at play, but Jain was careful not to affix too much blame on the economic conditions, noting it twice and then focusing on his business. (You say softening economic conditions; I say horrified management fleeing.)

Perhaps touching on the reason for at least one of those departures, Jain declared that InfoSpace will phase out all of its direct-to-consumer businesses in 2001. That means InfoSpace is willing to have a sizable chunk of its revenue torn from its financial statements as it sells off Go2Net portal properties in 2001 -- focusing instead on the wireless sector that contributed $18 million of 2000's $214.6 million in revenue, and sales to merchants' approximately $70 million. All that consumer effort, bought in October, sold off in January.

That's going to hurt.

Knowing the information could prove unpopular, Jain set aside his usually affable rapport for a tougher stance. When asked to wrestle with the 2001 estimate numbers one too many times, Jain quipped at one insistent analyst, "This is how you earn your living, you'll have to use your own judgment."

Hastily appointed CFO Tammy Halstead did her best to provide solid numbers to the Street, but came up short when asked to provide year-ago Q1 and Q2 earnings per share figures adjusted with Go2Net's results. What a picnic: Not only does Halstead get the CFO call a week before the earnings report, but she's got to piece together two companies' results so analysts can make their precious models.

Needless to say, the typical "color" requested from analysts -- around InfoSpace's subscriber growth, strategic relationships and the like -- were shuffled off until Jain and Halstead get their 30 days of analysis in. And you expected a river of blood to stream to the ends of the arena.

That comes in 30 days.
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Klasse Artikel !

Ralph