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Microcap & Penny Stocks : XSNI - X-Stream Network -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jon C who wrote (3368)	1/14/2000 2:26:00 PM
From: Troutbum	Respond to of 3519

Comments from Sukornyk quote.bloomberg.com X-Stream Network's Sukornyk on Liberty Surf Investment: Comment London, Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The following are comments by Greg Sukornyk, chief executive of the X-Stream Network, about Liberty Surf Groupe SA's investment of $5 million for a 10 percent stake in X-Stream. Closely held X-Stream, founded in March 1998, was the U.K.'s first free Internet service provider and now has 500,000 customers in the U.K. and 70,000 in Scandinavia. Liberty Surf is France's largest free Internet service provider and is backed by the U.K.'s Kingfisher Plc and Bernard Arnault's Europe At Web investment fund. Will Liberty Surf acquire control of X-Stream? ``There's an agreement in principal for the acquisition of a majority stake but it's subject to certain terms and conditions and we're working through those now. It's safe to say that within the next two months or so it should be finalized.' Was Liberty Surf the only company that made an offer? If not, why did you choose Liberty Surf? ``We have elicited interest from a number of other groups to date and we've sort of steered an independent course.' ``Liberty Surf is very interesting to us really because of the strategic fit. They're the largest free ISP in France. They've recently moved into Germany as well as a soft launch in the U.K. It complements nicely where we are. We're in the U.K. and northern Europe and together we will quickly be in seven or eight countries, which bodes well for Liberty Surf and ourselves. It's quite obvious that there's heavy consolidation in this space. The smaller players that don't tie up or form strategic alliances will either get snapped up or fall by the wayside.' How do you compete? ``Our service is quite unique because it provides for a piece of software that delivers banner ads at the top of the users' screen at all times when they're surfing the Internet. So our model, more than most ISP portals, is advertising and e-commerce driven. ``We've been, however, an independent company, a real Internet start-up, and as such have maybe not had either the financial or the distribution resources that the likes of a Dixons with Freeserve. We're nonetheless No. 3 in the U.K. market and going strong in the rest of Europe.' ``We've always tried to drive the Internet in the interests of the consumer. One of the ways we've done that is obviously through offering periodic 800 promotions where the user doesn't pay for the call charge. We're able to subsidize it with our advertising and e-commerce revenues. It handsomely covers what we have to pay on the 0800. It's a very effective promotion in terms of generating interest. Overall, Internet access I feel is going to be driven towards a very low cost telephony model, or no cost.' So how will you make money? ``Through the advertising revenue that we receive from our partners as well as the e-commerce transactions. And there's certain revenue generated off content as well.'

To: Jon C who wrote (3368)	1/14/2000 2:51:00 PM
From: donkeyman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3519

Jon: You a UK Man how about getting after The London Sunday Times and the Register theregister.co.uk etc. etc. to write a story on where the X-stream Shareholders fits it to all this alliance stuff between "Britain & France".!!!! Are the X-Stream Shareholders going to be Super Rich or just plain Rich.!!!

To: Jon C who wrote (3368)	1/14/2000 8:53:00 PM
From: Jeffrey D	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3519

Jon:<<I think the French report of Liberty taking a majority stake is incorrect. Thta is not how it is reported in British Press.>> Jon, X-Stream itself says Liberty Surf is buying a majority of the shares in the company. See below: "JAN 13, 2000, M2 Communications - LONDON -- The X-Stream Network, the UK's first free and third largest ISP, announced today that Liberty Surf Group, France's first free and second largest ISP, has made an investment of $5 Million US for 10% of the share capital of X-Stream and that shareholders owning a majority of X-Stream's shares have undertaken to sell their shares to Liberty Surf under certain conditions and on specific terms to be agreed.>> library.northernlight.com