CMGI Venture Arm Sees No Slowdown in International Investing
quote.bloomberg.com
By Randy Whitestone
Menlo Park, California, Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- CMGI Inc.'s venture arm, CMGI @Ventures, sees 100 to 200 business plans a month from startups outside the U.S., and has no plans to stem overseas efforts after canceling plans for an international fund.
The firm yesterday said it is melding three active venture funds and a planned international fund into one open-ended fund, CMGI @Ventures IV. In March the firm had announced plans to start an international fund with Dallas-based buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst and Hong Kong's Pacific Century Cyberworks Ltd.
Menlo Park, California-based @Ventures has three international investments -- in Germany's Blaxxun Interactive AG and Korea's Dialpad.com and Gamers.com -- has two others pending, and has several others it intends to make, said Peter Mills, managing partner. Still, that's only a fraction of the firm's activity: it gets a total of 3,500 business plans a month and has more than 55 active investments.
``This is a structural move and it doesn't impact our international plans one iota,'' Mills said of yesterday's announcement. ``We will continue to look at opportunities with Hicks, Muse and Pacific Century Cyberworks.''
Andover, Massachusetts-based CMGI announced the shift, and plans to reduce its stable of majority-owned companies to as few as five from 17, after its shares fell two-thirds in six months as investors shed Internet stocks.
That slide has helped cut prices of new private equity investments, said Mills.
``The power has shifted back to the capital and you hope that the capital is more disciplined than Major League Baseball owners who can't protect themselves from each other,'' said Mills. ``For a year and a half we've all been grousing about values and this is the opportunity to see that things are fairly valued.''
CMGI @Ventures has $802 million in active investments, $247 million of that in the current fund. The firm now has 22 investment professionals, up from 10 six months ago.
A single ``evergreen'' fund, with capital provided by CMGI as needed, is the most ``elegant'' way to let all 22 professionals analyze each investment, Mills said.
CMGI shares fell for a third straight day, dropping 3.56 to 39.63 in New York trading. The shares have fallen nearly 19 percent over the three-day period |
