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Technology Stocks : CMGI What is the latest news on this stock? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Thompson who wrote (17475)	4/4/2000 9:09:00 AM
From: sunny	Respond to of 19700

NEWS I somewhat like their attitude towards the price decline and think the market completely fails to see the huge advantage that cash rich incubators get from stock market declines. I'm not sure if ISPs here in Germany are attractive (and doubt it) but spending money in times likes these raise the probability of huge returns. Tuesday April 4, 8:59 am Eastern Time INTERVIEW-CMGI plans ambitious European takeovers By Richard Baum LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Internet investment company CMGI Inc. plans to take advantage of the fall in European technology stocks to start making ``ambitious' acquisitions, its regional head said on Tuesday. Marcus Bicknell, CMGI's president for Europe, told Reuters the company was most interested in the German market and its targets could include large Internet Service Providers (ISPs). ``We're rolling out the same model as in the U.S.,' he said in an interview, explaining that the company would divide its money between developing its existing brands in Europe and buying new companies. Bicknell said he got the green light to invest in Europe around November, but share prices were too high compared to U.S. technology stocks. ``We're not surprised at the readjustment... That will help us start acquiring more,' said Bicknell, whose career has spanned managing the rock group Genesis to heading a company distributing British Broadcasting Corp. channels in continental Europe. ``It doesn't mean we'll immediately announce 100 investments next week but we'll get invested... Whether it's this week or in three months is difficult to say.' GERMANY MORE ATTRACTIVE There was no specific sum to invest in Europe, he said, but acquisitions could include ``ambitious' deals to buy ISPs. He saw greater opportunites in Germany than in the UK. ``Germany is a much bigger market than Britain. The deals here are probably a little bit more expensive.' CMGI in December bought an 80 percent stake in German company Adtech, which provides advertising and campaign management services to Web companies. The type of sectors it was looking at included broadband and mobile technologies, as well as information aggregators -- companies that pull together news and other information from across the Web. ``The Scandinavians are good at that,' he said. Some of the investments could come through a joint venture announced last month between CMGI, venture capitalists Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. and Hong Kong Internet company Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. . The venture has $1.5 billion to invest globally. Bicknell said technology stocks probably had further to fall in Europe, as they had not yet gone through the order of declines seen in the United States in the past. LASTMINUTE ``OVERHYPED' He said the European sell-off might have been triggered by the flotation of online travel agency lastminute.com (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: LMC.L), whose shares have plunged below their offer price amid doubts about its valuation. ``It was overhyped and so they paid the penalty,' Bicknell said. CMGI would probably spend about $150 million on its existing businesses in Europe this year, including its portal AltaVista. It is set to test launch an unmetered ISP under the AltaVista name in the UK next week with 10,000 users. About one million people registered for the service, and the company will start taking users on in volume in the summer, Bicknell said.