>They did not!
Glenn,
I buying B2B again...because everyone else is!! It isn't important what I think...It's what Wall Street does.
Wayne, Pennsylvania, April 10 (Bloomberg) -- The shares of Safeguard Scientifics Inc. fell 3 percent after the company said it will shift its investments to Internet development companies from business-to-business ventures.
Shares in the Wayne, Pennsylvania-based venture capital firm, which were up as much as 10 percent earlier in the day, fell 1 9/16 to 57 15/16 on the New York Stock Exchange. About 4.1 million shares were traded, more than twice the three-month daily average.
``This is just the market moving,' said Adams, Harkness & Hill analyst Steven Frankel. The Russell 1000 Technology Index, of which Safeguard is a member, fell 27.41, or 4.6 percent, to 567.11 and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 258.24, or 5.8 percent, to 4188.21.
Safeguard, which has funded companies including Internet Capital Group Inc., said it will focus its investments on Web software, network services and communications technology. The focus shift was first reported today in the Wall Street Journal.
The company said its investment in so-called Internet infrastructure is complementary to Internet Capital Group, which focuses primarily on Internet business-to-business ventures. Safeguard has a 14 percent stake in Internet Capital.
``We think that the internet infrastructure marketplace, which Forrester Research pegs at $1.5 trillion by the year 2003, allows us to focus on a marketplace that is largely untapped,' President and Chief Operating Officer Harry Wallaesa said today in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Safeguard has already invested in 25 such companies, including U.S. Interactive Inc. and Pac-West Telecomm Inc.
``Many companies that are in this space are profitable or close to profitability,' said Joseph W. Garner, an analyst at Emerald Capital Management who rates Safeguard a ``short-term strong buy.' For example, Pac-West had fourth-quarter net income of $5.1 million, or 16 cents a share, compared with a loss of $900,000, or 2 cents, in the year-earlier period.
Safeguard said it would use most of the $375 million it raised in a secondary offering last week to fund acquisitions and additional interests in companies. |
