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To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (4)	11/30/1999 11:06:00 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Respond to of 133

From Reuters: biz.yahoo.com Tuesday November 30, 8:24 pm Eastern Time Knot Inc takes the market plunge with IPO By Monica Summers NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Wedding bells will ring on Wall Street this week as online wedding site The Knot Inc. makes its market debut as the first publicly traded Internet company servicing the $45 billion a year wedding industry. Despite its first-move advantage, however, analysts said the Knot still faces formidable competition from the hoards of online wedding sites permeating the Web, and it will be up to the company to find a way to separate itself from the pack. ``(The online wedding industry) is basically one of these industries where the barriers to entry are quite low,' said Steven Tuen, an analyst with the IPO Value Monitor. ``There are other online wedding companies that are currently private, but I think we can expect these types of companies to start going public,' Tuen said. ``The Knot just seems to be the first one that has tapped the public market.' The New York-based Knot plans to offer 3.5 million shares at an expected price range of $8-$10 per share in a deal led by Credit Suisse First Boston, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The deal is tentatively set to debut on Friday, and could raise as much as $35 million with the offering. The Knot plans to trade on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol ``KNOT.' ``Basically a large part of their revenues have come from advertising, and they're also trying to get into e-commerce business,' Tuen said. ``That's going to be a slow start for them. It's a big transition going from an ad-based model to an e-commerce one.' Every year more than 2.4 million couples get married in the United States, generating more than $45 billion in retail sales. According to a recent survey, the average couple spends about $19,000 on their wedding, the company said in its filing. After the offering, QVC Interactive Holdings LLC will hold a 36.4 percent stake in the Knot. QVC Interactive is a unit of QVC Inc., which is majority owned by cable television operator Comcast Corp. (NasdaqNM:CMCSA - news) Other major shareholders include venture capital firm Hummer Winblad, which will own a 18.3 percent stake after the offering, and America Online Inc. (NYSE:AOL - news), which will have an 8.1 percent stake after the deal. The Knot said it has not allocated the proceeds for specific use, but said expects it may use funds raised for general corporate purposes, acquisitions and investments, though it said it is not in any negotiations for such deals. Since the site was launched in July 1997, the Knot (www.theknot.com) has grown into a virtual shopping and planning destination with more than 395,000 couples currently enrolled, and more than 1,000 couples join every month. It also offers a number of interactive planning tools, including a budget keeper, a wedding checklist and a place where couples can build their own Web site. It also has an online wedding registry service where families and friends can find and purchase the gifts requested by the couple. ``The online portion of the registry market is very competitive,' said Ken Cassar, an online retail analyst with Jupiter Communications. ``The Knot essentially is a retailer,' Cassar said. ``So they've got a wedding registry business but they are much like Macys.com in that they are actually selling the product you're registering for.' In the online wedding registry space, the Knot's prime competitors are online gift registry Della.com, as well as traditional retailers who have online offerings such as Macy's, Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE:JWN - news) and Neiman Marcus Group Inc. (NYSE:NMGa - news), which Cassar said is certainly a significant challenge. ``The online wedding registry business is one that is absolutely ripe for the Internet because gift buyers don't need to go to the store,' Cassar said. ``But The Knot isn't the only company that has realized what a big opportunity this is, so it makes for a very competitive marketplace.' Other underwriters in the deal include Hambrecht & Quist and Salomon Smith Barney.