is this just the first red flag regards the inets?
11/5/1999 3:52 pm EST
Msg: 84815 of 84846
THE DAM HAS SPRUNG A LEAK!!!!
OppenheimerFunds' Bartlett Sells Amazoncom, EBay and EToys
New York, Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Bruce Bartlett, portfolio manager at OppenheimerFunds Inc., said he recently sold his
shares of Amazon.com Inc., eToys Inc. and eBay Inc. because he's tired of the Internet retailers focusing on spending
instead of profits.
Bartlett said he likes the business plan of eToys -- the leading online toy retailer -- though he questions why it's spending so
much on marketing. He also cited eBay's continual site outages and growing competition faced by the No. 1 online
auctioneer, and said he lost faith in Amazon.com because the Web's largest retailer doesn't divulge enough specifics about its
operations.
All three companies last week said they plan to spend heavily on marketing and other areas in the coming months to lure
more customers to their Web sites. That prompted their shares to fall, and some analysts to cut their ratings and earnings
estimates.
``It's bothersome to me that Internet companies feel such an urge to build demand through advertising, as opposed to
through a competitive product offering alone,' Bartlett said. ``I don't like the degree of urgency and immediacy to this -- it's
almost like spending in desperation.'
OppenheimerFunds held 140,000 shares of eBay as of June. The size of its holdings in Amazon.com and eToys wasn't
immediately available.
Bartlett is the head of the growth investing team at Oppenheimer, the 12th-biggest U.S. mutual fund manager with $71.3
billion in assets, according to Financial Research Co. He manages Oppenheimer's Growth Fund, Midcap Fund and
Aggressive Growth Fund, and is the co-manager of the Oppenheimer Total Return Fund.
Bartlett said he continues to hold shares of Williams- Sonoma Inc., a retailer of cookware and other home goods, and
Intimate Brands Inc., operator of the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works chains.
Williams-Sonoma introduced its first store on the Internet this week to supplement sales at its traditional stores, its catalogs
and an online wedding registry. Victoria's Secret started an Internet site last December.
``I'm looking more for companies that can employ Internet technologies to enhance their business model and their
competitive and profitability positions,' Bartlett said.
Spending
Santa Monica, California-based eToys last week said marketing expenses this quarter will be a third higher than initially
forecast as it seeks to capitalize on the holiday season. Amazon.com, of Seattle, also said it plans to increase spending to
promote its site for Christmas.
``It appears that Amazon is going to spend until investors don't allow them to do it anymore, and they don't give you any
visibility in terms of what's going on in their business,' Bartlett said.
San Jose, California-based eBay also warned that it will continue to invest the next few quarters on areas such as developing
new products and technology. The auctioneer has boosted its technical staff and added computers and software in the wake
of a series of outages, including a 22-hour shutdown in June.
EBay has continued to experience intermittent technical problems. Yesterday, for example, the part of its system that
displays images was unavailable for a period. On its site announcement board, eBay attributed the problem to an unusually
high load on its servers.
The company experienced a series of other system problems earlier in the week, each one lasting more than an hour. EBay
has been working on a new backup system designed to limit most outages to an hour or less.
Nov/05/1999 15:34 |
