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Strategies & Market Trends : Cents and Sensibility - Kimberly and Friends' Consortium -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marquis103 who wrote (82403)	3/4/2000 12:30:00 PM
From: westpacific	Respond to of 108040

INFT - quote from editor of Red Herring says it all. They are the hottest pulse on the tech. industry IMO. John Fitzgibbon Jr. of RedHerring.com said Inforte may have done even better if the climate of the market was better and if the IPO had not been immediately before a three-day weekend to celebrate Presidents Day. ``It kept some traders on the sidelines,' he said. Friday February 18 4:38 PM ET Hot Sector Helps Lift Inforte IPO CHICAGO (Reuters) - The stock of technology consulting firm Inforte Corp. (NasdaqNM:INFT - news) jumped about 200 percent in its first day of trading on Friday after its initial public offering. Inforte's shares, which priced at $32 in the IPO early in the morning, jumped 66 to 98 immediately after public trading began midday on the Nasdaq market. The stock closed up 40-15/16 at 72-15/16 on volume of 3.5 million shares. ``We're very focused on the long-term, strategically building the company ... so that's the kind of performance we're really interested in but having said that obviously we're very pleased with how things went today,' Philip Bligh, chairman and chief executive of Inforte told Reuters in a telephone interview. Analysts attributed Inforte's successful IPO to the company's strong growth history, ``pedigreed' client list, and the popularity of its industry. Irv DeGraw, research director at WorldFinanceNet.com, said, 'The company has a unique niche and has proven themselves in it, and has proven their ability to make money.' Kenan Pollack with Hoover's Online agreed, saying, ``It's doing better than I thought it would do. I think that when you're in an area in which you're showing strong growth, and you have a large list of very important and big clients ... that doesn't hurt.' The Chicago-based company offers services that enable clients to use Internet technology to improve their businesses. Services include strategy and site development and technology integration and implementation. Its client list includes Monsanto Co., Sun Microsystems Inc., and Intuit Inc. For the 1999 year, the company reported revenues of $30 million, up from $13.4 million in 1998. It also reported an operating income of $3.7 million. Inforte raised about $64 million in its IPO. Goldman Sachs was the lead underwriter for the IPO. The price of the offering was higher than initially estimated at $23 to $25 a share. The company offered 2 million shares of the stock with only 11.7 million outstanding shares after the IPO. Inforte said it plans to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, especially working capital and capital expenditures.