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Technology Stocks : Navigant International (FLYR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rob S. who wrote (655)	6/21/1999 6:45:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 725

I talked with Navigant today - they confirmed that sales and earnings appear to be on tract for the quarter. That alone should be cause for the stock price to move up after earnings are reported in another three weeks. Sales are going well - corporate travel is on tract. The earnings problems of the airlines is due to shortfalls in the cosnuemr market which has little effect on Navigant and corporate bookings are strong. Sales should come in as currently forecast. The company is seeing an accelerated adoption of the centralized computer systems. The branches of the company are "competing" to adopt the system effectively which is being driven by customer acceptance. Customers are finding the web reporting capabilities very much to their liking. More and better capabilities are in the works - all driven by what the customer needs, not by Internet hype. Adoption is also being helped by company incentives. The company expects cost savings to come in as good or better than expected through at least the next two quarters. This has the most dramatic immediate impact on earnings. There is expected to be more acquisitions - about two proposals are being considered each week but most are being turned down. Several are in the pipeline. The company is said to be offered acquisitions at favorable P/S and P/E ratios - this is because being acquired by FLYR offers the owners the advantages of higher growth rates and return and better competitiveness. The company is doing extensive planning for the development and marketing of the consumer web portal. Navigant stressed that they do not want to become "another low cost airfare discounter". Due to the large volume of business they are doing relative to the flash in the pan Internut air warefare sites, FLYR can put together very lucrative travel packages and marketing programs. I asked if the web portal strategy would have a negative impact on earnings due to increasd marketing costs - something I have been concerned about since so many Internut companies seem to be in the business of burning money. Since Navigant books billions in corporate airfare and other bookings, they accrue a large amount co-marketing revenue that goes unused. Therefore, much of the marketing expense of the consumer site is expected to be subsidized. This is a big plus for Navigant. The company plans to roll out the consumer site by early fall. Some may think that this is too far off. IMO, this makes good sense and fits with my understanding. Navigant is developing a well thought out consumer that will make money rather than burn it. They are planning a site that "leapfrogs" their competitors according to Navigant. During this initial phase of Internet development a lot of money has ben thrown at Internet companies whose only virtue is being able to give stuff away in order to pump up business. That strategy has proven to very effective in pumping up stock prices. navigant expects that the next phase of Internet development will be that the strong companies will survive and thrive and the flash in the pan companies will perish. Of course their prior owners of many of these Internut companies will have sold off huge amounts of stock and gotten rich in the meantime. I think FLYR will face some turbulence in the weeks ahead of earnings but is in an excellent position for substantial returns to investors by the end of this year. The bottom line is that earnings will show very healthy yr-to-yr gains and the plans for web sites and acquisitions will be exciting.