Yep, ICGE & CMGI, together with what was billed as "the next ICG, only better" when it was trying to go public in April 2000 - DVIN. The most blatant signs of the top that I saw but didn't act upon.
DVIN, if you don't know it, was Divine Interventures (now just Divine, Inc. - they changed their business model ;-). They made the cover of Red Herring in Feb 2000 for the "Econets" cover story. Having raised significant money from Dell and others in Jan 2000 and with a portfolio of 47 "member companies", they were about to go public at an offer price that would have been about 10x the NAV of the portfolio. Plus, half the 47 companies were formed by DVIN and were either 1-9 employees and a business plan, or were service companies (headhunters, PR firms, ad agencies, legal services, etc.) set up or bought to provide services to other member companies.
All three were fighting like crazy to avoid being classified as closed end funds (Inv. Co. Act of 1940) because if they were, they would have to report their NAV and everyone would know the stocks were bubbles inflated by many smaller bubbles.
If only... |
