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Strategies & Market Trends : ZixIt Corporation (ZIXI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rajiv who wrote (2329)	4/13/2000 7:50:00 AM
From: Rajiv	Respond to of 4120

Herb's piece from thestreet.com ZixIt's secret weapon?: ZixIt (ZIXI:Nasdaq), the former CustomTracks, hasn't been mentioned here for eons. Simply too hot to handle as the shorts and longs battle over the legitimacy of the Texas-based company, which claims to have the most secure software available for transmitting email. (Its recent full-page newspaper ads use the slogan, "Just say ZixIt.") The company was founded by David Cook, the former founder of Blockbuster Entertainment (BBI:NYSE), the guy who developed the software Blockbuster uses to track its rentals. Then, a few weeks ago, the company announced that Wayne Huizenga, chairman of AutoNation (AN:NYSE) and former head of Blockbuster and Waste Management (WMI:NYSE), was leading a group that planned to invest between $20 million to $44 million in the company. The stock rallied on the news, before falling with the rest of the market, which leads us to the "secret weapon" part of the story: Late yesterday, in an 8-K filed with the SEC, ZixIt disclosed who is in the group, and how much they're putting up. Turns out the investors include a large contingent of execs from General Electric (GE:NYSE) led by GE CEO Jack Welch, who invested $1 million. GE CFO Keith Sherin invested $99,984, as did GE chief information officer Gary Reiner, GE General Counsel John Samuels and Dennis Dammerman, CEO of GE Capital. Also in the group are Sprint (FON:NYSE) CEO William Esrey ($99,984) and Sprint President Ronald LeMay ($1 million). What do they know that the shorts don't? Are those companies, or their suppliers, about to strike deals with ZixIt? Does this mean ZixIt's technology (generally pooh-poohed by the shorts) has been validated? Hard to say. Sprint execs couldn't be reached and a GE spokeswoman would only say that they're "personal investments." But hey, no matter what it means, it certainly belongs in the "worth noting" category.