SQUAWK BOX - Bid.com International - Chairman & CEO - Interview
( CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video )
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THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN
ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARK HAINES, CNBC SQUAWK BOX ANCHOR: A new name at
the Nasdaq this morning. Toronto based bid.com
(BIDS) will start trading there today under the
ticker symbol "BIDS." Bid.com is an on-line
auction house competing with eBay (EBAY),
Priceline (PCLN), Amazon (AMZN). Bid.com believes
it can distinguish itself from online competitors
by concentrating on business to business rather
than person to person. Joining us now with more on
his company, Paul Godin. He is chairman and CEO,
cofounder of bid.com. Good morning, sir. Thanks
for being with us. PAUL GODIN, CHAIRMAN & CEO,
BID.COM: Good morning. HAINES: You' re going to do
a B to B business instead of consumer to consumer?
GODIN: We're going to do a combination of both.
Actually, we're going to do three things. We're
going to do business to consumer. We're going to
do business to business and we're also going to do
straight licensing of our technology. HAINES: OK.
So, how do you distinguish yourself here? There's
plenty of business to consumer. There's plenty of
consumer to consumer, and there's plenty of
business to business already. How many more do we
need? GODIN: Well, I think nobody's really
emerged, certainly not in the business-to-business
sector. And traditionally there's... HAINES: I
think VerticalNet (VERT) might argue with you on
that one. GODIN: But nobody is global and really
that's where we're trying to position ourselves,
is to be a global player in this. We're moving
into Europe. We're going to have our office open
there within the next 60 days, out of Dublin,
Ireland, which is a technology hub. We have a
tremendous amount of interest in licensing our
technology and doing co- venture. I think it's a
big pie and I don't think one person is just going
to dominate it. SETH TOBIAS, GUEST HOST: Mr.
Godin, Seth Tobias. I obviously, I think all of
your competitors want to be global as well. Amazon
just came into this business and it certainly put
a negative effect on eBay's shares. Tell me about
your real business. Tell us how many unique
visitors you have, how many items onboard. What
revenues and earnings look like in the recent past
and going forward. GODIN: Sure. We have over
100,000 registered subscribers since we launched
the bid.com brand back in March of 1998. Our
revenues in 1997 were under $3 million. Revenues
in 1998 were over $20 million. So, the ramping is
there. Proportionally speaking, we're looking at
doing over $50 million in 1999. The vast majority
about, you know, $36, $37 million of that is still
going come to the business to consumer side. But
as time goes on, 2000, 2001, we're certainly going
to see a greater dependency on the revenue from
business to business and pure licensing. We've
already signed our first licensing deals, two of
them within the United States and we just launched
our first international licensing deal. UNKNOWN:
Can you explain a little bit about the licensing
deal, exactly how does that work. If someone
licenses your technology, does that mean they
become a competitor of yours or that they're just
using your systems to go business to business?
GODIN: That's a good question. In this particular
instances these are partners of ours that have
licensed the technologies, and these are actually
joint ventures that we're actually going to be
operationally involve in. We can license the
technology as we're looking at doing in Pan Asia
and the Pacific where we wouldn't be operationally
involved, but on a day-to-day basis in North
America and Europe we do want to be involved.
There are coventures where we'll help the licensee
get started and get off the ground. HAINES: Faber.
DAVID FABER, GUEST HOST: Sir, I just was hoping
you could clarify something with regard to your
share count. Total, you know, fully diluted shares
outstanding. The data providers, some of them have
it at 39 million, but I've heard it could be as
much as 80 million shares; is that correct? GODIN:
No. The actual number's just under 51 million
issued and outstanding fully diluted. FABER: And
that includes ownership of... GODIN: Everything.
FABER: The likes of yours and things of that
nature. GODIN: Everything. FABER: OK. Thank you.
GODIN: You're welcome. HAINES: Mr. Godin, thanks a
lot. Appreciate your enlightening us about your
company. GODIN: My pleasure, thank you very much.
HAINES: Best of luck to you trading in the U.S.
GODIN: Thank you. HAINES: Paul Godin is chairman
and CEO of bid.com. Company starts trading on the
Nasdaq today. The ticker symbol will be BIDS,
B-I-D-S. END
Transcription copyright 1999 Federal Document
Clearing House, Inc. No portions of the materials
contained herein may be used in any media without
attribution to Interactive Desktop Video, LLC.
This transcript may not be copied or resold in any
media.
Content and programming copyright 1998 Interactive
Desktop Video, Inc, LLC. Transcription copyright
1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Mark Haines, Seth Tobias, David Faber, SQUAWK BOX
- Bid.com International - Chairman & CEO -
Interview., CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video,
04-20-1999.
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