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

To: Rob C. who wrote (13869)	2/17/2000 4:44:00 PM
From: Steve Lewis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

<This is bad news... <http://cbs.marketwatch.com/archive/20000217/news/current/ckf... Could be problematic but: - EBPP is in an early market deployment phase (similar to Open Access issue on cable broadband) It tough to call it a monopoly at this stage (where is CKFR's $Bs of profits?) - someone needs to complain and it needs to be more visible Who would want to kill this? (Spectrum, etc.) Time will tell as the buyout will take until fall to finish. Steve

To: Rob C. who wrote (13869)	2/17/2000 7:29:00 PM
From: jjbucci	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20297

Rob C, I don't believe that the DOJ can step in on this one because of the intellectual property issues involved. jjbucci

To: Rob C. who wrote (13869)	2/22/2000 7:18:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

Hi August, I'm no longer surprised at the number of people who email me with comments even though it's very clear they haven't read or bothered to understand the article at all. Regards Emily URL: cbs.marketwatch.com CheckFree may hear from trust busters Yet even a potential rival likes the TransPoint deal By Emily Church, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 2:32 PM ET Feb 17, 2000 NewsWatch NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- CheckFree's move this week to snap up its biggest rival in electronic bill payment and presentment might spark interest among antitrust regulators, some analysts point out. Yet a potential rival of the newly strengthened CheckFree (CKFR: news, msgs) said that, while the acquisition of TransPoint will accelerate the electronic payments industry, the deal doesn't represent checkmate. "No one company is going to dominate this industry," said John Tedesco of PayMyBills.com, a Pasadena, Calif., start-up that charges people $8.95 a month for processing up to 25 of their bills -- electronically or otherwise. Only 80 or so billers are electronic end to end, and less than 1 percent of the estimated 18 billion bills that are sent out each year are delivered and paid electronically. Still, the electronic bill payment and presentment industry is expected to attract 25 million users in the next three years, according to Jupiter Communications. By bringing on TransPoint, CheckFree "is very well-positioned to partake in that boom. This is one of those mergers that's good for the industry, and I think the stock market showed that," PayMyBills' Tedesco said. As a result of the deal, CheckFree now dominates the electronic end of the industry. Spectrum, a bank group led by Chase Manhattan (CMB: news, msgs), is CheckFree's distant competition in electronic bills. "There is sure to be antitrust scrutiny of this deal, especially given the Department of Justice's maniacal focus on Microsoft," wrote James Marks, an industry analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, in a note to clients. "There is no way to effectively predict this outcome." CheckFree shares tacked on 5 percent Thursday to 105 1/4 after rocketing 47 percent higher Wednesday on the news that CheckFree is buying TransPoint for for about $1 billion in stock. TransPoint's owners, Microsoft (MSFT: news, msgs), First Data Corp. (FDC: news, msgs) and Citigroup (C: news, msgs), are to have a 23 percent stake in CheckFree. See full story. In First Data, CheckFree lands the dominant credit-card processor for issuing banks -- one of the most important cohorts in terms of bill volume, Marks noted. The deal is expected to be completed in six months. CheckFree snapped up Bluegill Technologies for $280 million in December. Bluegill makes software for billers moving online. Bankers kept their reactions to the deal largely to themselves Thursday, but a response is expected to surface at some point. Wells Fargo (WFC: news, msgs) and First Union (FTU: news, msgs) are also in the Chase-led Spectrum group. "Banks already treat CheckFree as one of the 'Four Horsemen of the Banking Apocalypse.' Two of the other three are Microsoft and First Data," Marks said. "In the end, though, the history of bank consortia in the face of private third-party competition is very poor," he added. Emily Church is the New York bureau chief for CBS MarketWatch.