Murrey... I lifted this article at the Zoo.... CMGI expects revenue to rival
AOL's
By Bloomberg News
Special to CNET News.com
November 16, 1999, 11:40 a.m. PT
CMGI expects to be the second-largest Internet company in terms of
revenue behind America Online by the end of its fiscal year in July, Chief
Executive David Wetherell said.
CMGI, which runs Internet venture funds, is the No. 3 revenue generator
among Internet companies, behind AOL and Yahoo, Wetherell said in
speaking at the second annual Bloomberg Internet Conference in San
Francisco.
CMGI gains revenue from its operating businesses such as Internet search
service AltaVista and records gains
from sales of stock in its investments
such as GeoCities, which Yahoo
bought earlier this year. CMGI expects
several companies in which it has
stakes to go public by early next year,
which will increase its marketable
securities, Wetherell said.
"We hit over $5 billion today in
publicly marketable securities that we
own," Wetherell said.
Among its holdings, online vitamin
seller MotherNature.com is expected
go public in December, and
Furniture.com is set to go public in
January, Wetherell said.
AltaVista will sell shares to the public
in March, Wetherell added. CMGI, which expected to take AltaVista public in
January, pushed back the date to give AltaVista time to grow revenue and
customers after its redesigned site debuted last month, supported by a $120
million marketing campaign, he said.
Wetherell declined to comment on speculation that CMGI was in discussions
to buy Lycos, one of the most popular Internet search services, in which
CMGI owns a roughly 17 percent stake. He said CMGI isn't interested in
increasing that stake.
1stUp.com, a free Internet service provider that CMGI owns, is adding about
10,000 new users a day and will soon pass America Online in the number of
new subscribers it signs up, Wetherell said. CMGI executives also plan to start
a new venture fund focused on Latin America.
Copyright 1999, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.
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