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Gold/Mining/Energy : Newsys Solutions Inc A. NSS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BM who wrote (109)	9/18/2000 12:34:41 PM
From: BM	Respond to of 111

"Definitely InBusiness" Fri, Sep. 15, 2000 18:51 By Thien Huynh, Canada-iNvest.com NewSys Solutions Inc. (NSS) has a new name, a new company record for revenues, a new business strategy, and most importantly, three important new friends. The company recently changed its name to InBusiness Solutions Inc., which had previously been the name of a division of NewSys. As a result, the company will also change its stock symbol to BIZ on or before September 15, 2000. InBusiness released its fiscal 2001 first quarter report on Friday, making light of the many new changes at the company. The firm saw its net profit dive to $40,866 for the three months ended July 31st from $132,829 at the same time last year. But InBusiness set a new company record for revenues as sales were up 42% to more than $6.7 million from about $4.7 million a year ago. “The continued growth was very gratifying for the company. But the real significance of the quarter is that it is the first quarter that we are starting to see the results of our incorporation of the e-channel into the company’s strategy,” says David Luxton, a member of the board of directors at InBusiness. The company’s new e-channel plan is based on partnering up with local business publishers in order to use their brand names to gain access to the small and medium-sized enterprises market. Using its business-to-business web portal technology, InBusiness then provides each partner a branded web site that incorporates national and local news with expanded products and services. InBusiness and each partner then share the revenues generated from the branded portal site. InBusiness has already signed on the Ottawa Board of Trade and Metroland Printing, a Torstar (TS.B) subsidiary. The company expects to close ten more agreements by the end of this year. The new strategy is already gaining significant attention in the market place, as seen by the company’s new best friend, The Bank of Montreal (BMO). InBusiness gained instant credibility when it teamed up with BMO to launch twelve national business centres that will offer online services for BMO’s small-to-midsize business customers. BMO will pay a licensing fee to InBusiness for the service. The bank showed even more faith by also securing an option to buy 3.5% of the company’s 17.5 million shares over the next two years. “The deal with the Bank of Montreal was a very, very large validation point. BMO advised us that this was a very powerful strategy. They had deeply researched this topic and they decided upon this approach because they really felt it was the most powerful approach in reaching businesses in a most purposeful way,” says Luxton. The company also has a big name shareholder in Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI.A). InBusiness bought Silicon Valley North, a technology publication, in May to strengthen its e-channel strategy. Rogers Publishing Ltd. is a major shareholder in the publication and in effect, became a shareholder in InBusiness. The president of Rogers iMedia has joined the company’s advisory board. InBusiness will also have institutional coverage for the first time since switching gears. Yorkton Securities will be initiating coverage of the company with a “speculative buy” recommendation. David Curtis, an analyst at Yorkton, has set a 6-12 month target price of $6.00 on the stock. In its previous form, InBusiness had a 52-week high of $6.10 and a low of 70 cents. “We believe there is tremendous potential value in establishing and owning a B2B e-channel. The Bank of Montreal deal represents a strong validation of the company’s technology and business model, and we expect to see additional announcements in the coming months that will demonstrate further progress,” says Curtis. “We rate the stock a ‘speculative buy’ due to the early stage nature of the venture.” With these big names paying close attention to the company, InBusiness thinks the time has come for investors to take a new look at the stock as well. “We are happy to see the kind of price forecasts that Yorkton has put out. When the stock was down around $2, we always thought that it was vastly undervalued. That’s why we wanted to be authorized to buy back some of that stock and that’s why we did an issue,” says Luxton. “Since then, I think the market began to discover the stock and understood the story a little more. Hopefully investors will be impressed by the financial reports as well.”