There is no question that the toxic convertibles are usually big trouble. But when a company is in trouble, it is their only chance, and there is no question that UOLP's original business plan was a failure. However, failure is not an absolute, the Company's new plan is on track, as can be seen by the recent press release about new business. Also, the world is now ready to accept online training, as indicated by other training companies recent releases (check wall street journal on tues, i think, where Mike Milken's training company just signed a few major colleges to distance MBA program, see below), yes the world is now ready.
Also all toxic converts are not fatal. 2 companies SCII and ENV paid off their converts and are in the process of recovering. Also, this one has the internut crowd involved, the sleeze bags who made the loans stand to make much more if the deal works, rather than have the comapany fail. Final point, their training library of courses and platform, and customer base is worth more than the current value of the stock, and remember the training industry is projected to be over $50 Billion.
from WSJ
UNext.com Signs Course Deal
With Four More Universities
By PATRICK MCGEEHAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Four more major universities have signed agreements with UNext.com,
an Internet start-up backed by financier Michael Milken that plans to
deliver graduate-level courses electronically to corporate employees
starting this year.
In a signal that graduate schools fear being left behind as the Internet
transforms education, UNext.com has struck deals with the University of
Chicago, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and the London
School of Economics and Political Science. Along with Columbia
University's business school, the first school that signed on, each school
plans to help UNext.com create course materials that it can sell to major
corporations for employee training and education.
UNext.com, which is considering going public through an initial stock
offering, is aiming to fill the need of working people to quickly learn
specific subjects, such as accounting and financial matters. To do so,
UNext.com intends to divide up the school's courses into "course-lets" that
will allow users to bone up on narrow subjects, such as how to prepare a
capital budget, said Donald A. Norman, president of the UNext Learning
Systems unit.
The company hopes eventually to offer its courses directly to individuals
and gain accreditation as an online business school so that it can grant
MBA degrees. It is headed by Andrew Rosenfield, a trustee of the
University of Chicago who earlier this year sold a consulting firm, Lexecon
Inc., to a unit of Mr. Milken's Knowledge Universe LLC. Knowledge
Universe owns 20% of UNext.com, and the presence of Mr. Milken, the
former junk-bond king who went to prison for violating securities laws, has
stirred unrest among faculty members of some of the schools involved with
UNext.com. But Mr. Rosenfield says Mr. Milken has no voting power in
the company and has agreed not to increase his stake.
Mr. Rosenfield said each of the five schools was tapped for its expertise in
a particular area. The University of Chicago will provide materials for the
company's first offering, a finance course, while the London School of
Economics will help create courses in international trade.
UNext.com will compete with Caliber Learning Network Inc., a company
that went public in 1998 and has been striking deals with other top
universities, including the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University. Caliber has signed up
Nabisco Inc. and other corporate customers.
International Business Machines Corp. was the first company to sign up as
a customer of what UNext.com describes as an "online business-education
community called Cardean" -- named for a Roman goddess -- that will
allow employees to take courses electronically on their own schedule, from
work or home or even while traveling. The courses will be delivered
through a product created by IBM's Lotus Development unit called
LearningSpace, and Lotus's sales force will sell the educational materials to
its corporate customers around the world.
"When we go in on a sales call and talk to a customer, we will be able to
register a company for a UNext course," said Peter Rothstein, general
manager of Lotus's distributed-learning business group.
If online education does explode, as Mr. Rothstein predicts, and UNext
rides that boom, the schools could be in line for a windfall. The schools will
receive payments based on sales of the course materials they provide and
at least some of them will have the option of converting those royalties into
equity in UNext.com. John Preis, an associate dean at Columbia Business
School, said UNext.com has guaranteed the school a minimum of $20
million over five years, regardless of whether the company goes public. |
