Q&A with David Wetherell(CMGI CEO) from Forbes
Through either CMGI or its venture arm @Ventures, Wetherell plans to make at least four new investments every month.
Wetherell says that over the next 12 months he plans to take another 12 to 20 companies public. The more companies that go public, the more money CMGI has in its war chest and the more stock it has to make acquisitions with. Among the companies that could go public are Raging Bull, Medical Village, AdSmart, Furniture.com, NaviNet, NaviSite, advoco.com and CarParts.com.
This may be a bit ambitious, though, even for Wetherell. While few would dispute that he is readying a number of CMGI's investments for IPOs, it remains to be seen if he can successfully oversee so many offerings in such a short period. Another concern is that if the market's appetite for Internet stocks continues to dwindle, he may not be able to place them all.
But even if he places only a third of his estimated amount, CMGI could still pull in billions of dollars with which to fund more investments and reward his investors. What is even more intriguing is that Wetherell's grand strategy is to create his version of a keiretsu, a universe of interlocking companies that supply their services not only to other CMGI companies but also to companies outside the CMGI family.
For example, such CMGI properties as Furniture.com or Productopia, among others, will be used to enhance AltaVista's and Planet Direct's e-commerce offerings. AdSmart, an ad management technology provider, and Engage, its Internet profiling company, will be enlisted to target the individual tastes of visitors to his portal sites.
On top of that, he will also apply the various CMGI properties to his newest and most secretive project, called iCast, which he says he wants to grow into the "largest entertainment company in the world."
Hubris? Guts? Is he building the most comprehensive and diverse collection of Internet stocks, or is it a Ponzi scheme? It's hard to say at this early stage whether Wetherell will be able to continue to replicate the phenomenal success he enjoyed in the first half of this year or whether his whole empire will collapse like a house of cards. The accelerated speed at which Wetherell and CMGI are now moving would have been unthinkable a year ago, and he now has more money than he probably once would have thought possible. A lot of people know who he is now. Some are rooting for him to succeed, others to fail. One thing is for certain, as Barry Diller found out, it doesn't pay to underestimate David Wetherell. |
