Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Sloan who wrote (6950)	6/24/1999 11:09:00 AM
From: money@work	Respond to of 20297

RESEARCH ALERT: CheckFree Withdraws Secondary Offering ATLANTA, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- CheckFree Holdings Corporation (Nasdaq: CKFR) announced today that it would not close on its 3.8 million share follow-on stock offering, priced at $39 per share after market close on Monday, June 21. Yesterday three banks announced the formation of a venture, tentatively called "The Exchange," that would attempt to create a directory and routing server to support them in delivering electronic bills. Although the announcement was followed by a conference call in which the participating banks stated that they would continue to use CheckFree services, the value of CheckFree's shares fell by almost 24 percent. Pete Kight, Chairman and CEO of CheckFree said, in announcing the decision, "None of these banks ever spoke to CheckFree about this effort nor indicated the formation of this group, nor gave any indication they intended to make an announcement of such an organization. In any case, there is nothing new about the commercial side of some banks wanting to find a way to participate in electronic billing. We have been very successfully competing for billers against the commercial departments of banks for more than a year now, and our success has not been due to the banks' lack of a server. "All of that aside, the market made it an easy decision to withdraw CheckFree's share offering. We are, of course, deeply disappointed that the market did not, in our view, properly assess the importance of yesterday's announcement. Much more so, though, we were stung by implications that CheckFree somehow managed to time the secondary offering to beat the banks' announcement. Last week CheckFree executives sat across the table from more than 50 institutional investors, many of whom requested an allocation of stock. I don't ever want to walk back into the offices of these analysts and portfolio managers and have to think that they might be wondering whether we had been honest with them. Our credibility with our shareholders is more important than any offering." Kight concluded, "If speculation is going to remain uninformed, withdrawing the offering is the only solution. We stated in all of our analyst and investor meetings over the past week that CheckFree did not need the funding from the secondary to complete our expanded Internet distribution strategy, and this decision won't slow us down a single day. We have sufficient resources to execute our plans, and we'll do so with force. Anyone thinking that the timing of these events is going to freeze the market is mistaken, and as good as this company is, and as powerful as our opportunities are, I am not going to permit us to be distracted by a senseless controversy."