TheStreet.com Open to All Buy, Sell Offers Sinking stock gives Internet media firm good reason to deal sfgate.com
Dan Fost Thursday, October 5, 2000
If TheStreet.com is on the block, are they pounding the pavement looking for buyers?
Earlier this year, when financial news Web site TheStreet.com said it had hired an investment bank to pursue strategic options, I and others reported the news with the standard interpretation: The company was putting itself up for sale.
Oh, no, the company said. Chief Executive Officer Tom Clarke went out of his way to say that the company was, in fact, not seeking bids.
Well, I talked to Clarke this week, and he's not saying that anymore.
``I wouldn't say we're not on the block,'' he said. ``We're looking at opportunities. If something came along that gave our shareholders value, we'd have that dialogue.''
Clarke said TheStreet is still working with the bank, Wasserstein Perella & Co., but the new climate on, well, the Street dictates that companies both get profitable and get big in a hurry.
And two of the easiest ways to get big are to acquire someone or to be acquired.
Clarke is looking at both: ``If we could be a consolidator -- or an attractive acquisition for the right type of company,'' he said.
``It's inevitable you're going to see consolidation in the financial news space,'' he added.
On Feb. 16, when word got out that TheStreet had hired Wasserstein Perella, the company's stock was off substantially from the $70.13 price it hit during its giddy initial public offering in May 1999 -- but it was at a still respectable $16.81.
By April 27, when Clarke issued his ``not for sale'' pronouncement, the stock price had slid to $6.25.
And Tuesday, after months of bouncing along the bottom, shares hit a 52-week low, at $4.09. Yesterday, it dropped to $4.
Other Web sites that produce financial content, like MarketWatch.com and Individual Investor Group, are also getting battered in the market. While MarketWatch is not a likely acquisition target -- CBS owns half the company, and it fits the television network's Internet strategy nicely -- Clarke said that low stock prices generally make deals more likely.
``As valuations are at the levels they are, unfortunately, (financial dot-coms) become attractive to different types of companies,'' Clarke said. ``We'll see a lot of activity in the not-too-distant future. It will probably happen in the next six to nine months.''
SURVIVING: Talk about busy: Nicole Hampton is the talent agent representing two of the castaways from the hit series ``Survivor'' -- and her phone is ringing off the hook.
Hampton, who works at San Francisco's Stars, the Agency, is hustling up offers -- and turning some away -- for Stacey Stillman and Jenna Lewis, two San Francisco residents who lived on that island. The agency is also trying to land a couple of the male Survivors as clients.
It's tricky business, exploiting someone's sudden fame while trying to be selective. Hampton gets calls from radio stations, television producers, advertisers, charity events, car dealers and Web sites.
Unless it's a worthwhile charity event, you had better be prepared to cough up money to get a Survivor. ``A lot of the dot-coms won't pay, and they say, `They'll get exposure,' '' Hampton said. ``We don't need any more exposure. Otherwise, the public is going to backlash. We have to be very, very smart about where we put them. We've seen what some of them have done, and we cringe.''
Lewis has turned down Playboy; Hampton said that's a good move, because Lewis hopes to parlay her ``Survivor'' fame into an acting career that lasts well beyond the allotted 15 minutes.
She already has filmed an episode of ``Nash Bridges,'' in which she plays a professional dog walker who works for one of the cops. ``She's not killed,'' Hampton said. ``She could easily come back into it.'' Stillman, an attorney with San Francisco's Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison, has no acting aspirations, but she will play a prosecutor on ``Touched by an Angel.''
``At this point, they're so comfortable with the camera,'' Hampton said.
Some people gripe that the Survivors are getting fame without having any special talents. Hampton disagrees. ``I think they paid their dues, personally,'' she said. ``I wouldn't eat rat to be an actor in L.A. But then again, there's probably a lot of people who would.''
Through it all, Hampton's vocabulary has changed. When I asked how she was doing, she said, ``I'm alive -- I'm trying not to use the word, `Surviving.' ''
FACTUAL CORRECTNESS: Two weeks ago, I said that CNN had still not set up a bureau in the Bay Area, and several helpful readers pointed out my misstatement. CNN has actually had a San Francisco bureau for about 14 years. It's the cable news network's financial arm, CNNfn, that is just now looking for a spot to set up shop, either in San Francisco or in Silicon Valley. And much like its rival CNBC's arrangement with the Wall Street Journal, CNNfn had been sharing resources with print media such as the Industry Standard, ECompany Now, Fortune and the Financial Times.
EPILOGUE: After weeks of tests, the New York City coroner's office finally gave word last week: Aaron Bunnell, the young Internet entrepreneur who died in June, was killed by a lethal mix of heroin, alcohol and Valium.
Bunnell, 26, was vice president and the head of online operations at Upside Today, the online arm of his father David Bunnell's Upside Media. He was found dead in his hotel room at New York's Waldorf-Astoria, at the end of a successful business trip.
The Los Angeles Times weighed in Sunday with a thoroughly reported story, saying the Internet industry, in San Francisco and around the country, is rife with abuse of cocaine and other drugs. It cited Bunnell's case as the most dramatic and high-profile example of that dangerous trend.
Friends and associates mourned Bunnell's death as the loss of an energetic, fun- loving Web talent with a bright future, while others hope his death stands as an example to others. |
