Business-to Business E-Commerce Stocks: A Brief Review
I found several articles on the Web which discuss the B-2-B stocks and a brief review is provided. The reason I was not knowledgeable about them initially is that there only about 10 publicly traded stocks engaged in B-2-B commerce.
B-2-B "Portals":
1. VerticalNet (VERT): aggregates buyers and sellers in more than 47 industries or "vertical markets". Has great diversity of clients. Makes money by charging for hosting "storefronts" on its sites, sponsorships, and obtaining a percentage of transactions it enables.
2. Chemdex (CMDX): a "vertical hub" for transactions within the $15-billion life sciences industry. Very undervalued relative to similar stocks; trades at roughly 9x fiscal year 2000 revenue estimates vs. Ariba (110x), Commerce One (71x) and E-Bay (52x). Recently acquired Promedix, increasing market opportunity nearly five-fold. Already provides 80% of products requested by the buyers using the Chemdex MarketPlace.
3.EarthWeb (EWBX): provides content to IT professionals including education and training, job posts, and reference books.
4. RoweCom (ROWE): provides a Web-based storefront that Fortune 1000 companies and academic libraries can use to order, pay for and manage their collecting of magazines, journals and books for students, employees and faculty.
B-2-B Infrastructure:
1. Commerce One (CMRC): in the e-procurement space, its clients use CMRC for buying operating resources such as office supplies and computer equipment from its network. Buyers can also use CMRC procurement software to track the purchasing record of employees, automatically track approval requests, etc., significantly improving internal workflows.
2. Ariba (ARBA): focuses on the e-procurement of operating resources. One of the hottest IPOs of 1999; IPO priced at $23, not at $144.50.
3. Autotradecenter (AUTC): Facilitates the wholesale buying and selling of cars between dealers, including trade-ins and ex-lease autos.
4. Cobalt Group (CBLT): provides e-commerce infrastructure services for auto dealers, such as Web design and development, hosting and maintenance.
5. Concur Technologies (CNQR): competes with Ariba and Commerc One in the e-procurement space. Its software automates travel and entertainment expenses and human resources management for corporations.
Other:
1. Internet Capital Group (ICGE): perhaps the most interesting of the stocks in B-2-B e-commerce, this is the CMGI of B-2-B and acts as a mutual fund of B-2-B companies. Currently participates invests in 30 companies and owns 36% of VerticalNet. Companies holdings are broken down into two groups, MarketMakers and Infrastructure Service Providers.
New IPOs:
1. Calico Commerce (CLIC): set to open today (Thursday ) Oct. 7, at $14. This is red-hot and is one of the most widely-anticipated IPOs. Is involved with providing software for to facilitate and improve efficiency of e-commerce transactions.
2. Breakaway Solutions (BWAY): Very similar to CLIC, from what I can gather. Provides software for B-2-B and is an infrastructure play. IPO debuted yesterday (10/6); was priced at $16 (I think), opened at $60, then settled down in the mid 40-s. This might be a nice buy today for a quick short-term (less than 5 days) pop.
My best picks in this space are: ICGE and VERT, due to their diversity and wide reach, and Chemdex, due to its favorable valuation. As always, please use this only as a starting point and do your own due diligence. Good luck. |
