Jeff: A report in Canadian Business Magazine a couple of weeks ago about IPO's--Title "To go public press enter now"-"It sounds terrific:you do your IPO on the Internet and save big bucks on underwriting fees. there's only one thing missing:a sales team to push your shares." Quote: "On a single day, E-minerals (www.e-minerals.com)received a high of 25,000 unique site visits. And for reasons beyond Farrell's imagination, the US military has, several times, surfed his site. What's all the buzz about? Certainly not mining. People want to see how Farrell successfully set up and executed the first direct IPO over the Internet in Canada. Starting on Jan. 5, 1999 the IPO continued for six weeks and raised E-minerals $376,431."--- " Still not sure what the buzz is about? Traditionally, the opportunity to buy shares in an IPO has been restricted to big underwriting institutions and the well-connected. "The complaint is that small retail investors never see the good deals. All we see is the sh-- that they don't want", says Farrell. He's hoping the E-minerals experiment which comes on the heels of a much larger rush of Internet IPO's in the US, will help change that - aiding not only small investors, but also small and medium-sized businesses seeking better access to capital, a market he feels is not well-served by traditional brokerage houses.
Indeed, it's already becoming clear that the advent of Internet IPO's spells change for all the players involved in corporate financing. The breakthrough came in 1996, when New York microbrewery Spring Street Brewing Co. launched the world's first direct IPO on the Internet, showcasing the Net's ability to not only allow small companies to raise capital, but also to bypass brokerage houses - and their extravagant fees. |
