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To: Bill Harmond who wrote (118204)	2/20/2001 5:51:34 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Billy, those were days my friend when you thought the mania would never end. Today your 244 trades for 24, but that doesn't make you a bad investor! >To:William Harmond who wrote (86967) From: H James Morris Friday, Dec 10, 1999 12:01 PM View Replies (1) \| Respond to of 118211 Thank god for Morgan Stanley. New York, Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- FreeMarkets Inc. may jump when trading begins today, pushed up by demand from investors unable to buy shares in the $173 million stock sale yesterday. Securities firms are receiving bids as high as $200. FreeMarkets sold 3.6 million shares at $48 each yesterday. As recently as last week, the underwriters, led by Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., were planning to sell the shares for about $16. The price was bumped up as a surge in other Internet share sales spurred demand. Investors bid for $13.8 billion worth of shares in the online auctioneer, 80 times the amount offered, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The Pittsburgh-based company has auctioned items including rock salt and printed circuit boards for companies such as General Motors Corp. and United Technologies Corp. ``This is the most aggressive price revision that I have seen in the 10 years we've been in business,' said David Menlow, president of IPOFinancial.com. Scott Ehrens, an analyst with Bear, Stearns & Co., initiated coverage of FreeMarkets today with a 12-month price target of $300 a share. Internet Mania Shares of VA Linux Systems surged eightfold yesterday in their first day of trading, giving the challenger to Microsoft Corp. the best first-day performance of any U.S. IPO this decade. The 279 Internet IPOs this year have gained an average of 90 percent in their first day of trading, according to CommScan LLC. Investors are betting more companies will tap FreeMarkets because its auction system can help cut costs. The company estimates it has saved clients - including 30 companies and governments -- as much as 25 percent on purchases. The market for such online business-to-business auctions will likely amount to $70 billion next year, up from about $3 billion this year, according to A.T. Kearney, a management consulting firm based in Chicago that became a competitor of FreeMarkets after setting up its own auction service. FreeMarkets posted revenue in the nine months ended Sept. 30 of $13 million, up from $4.8 million in the same period a year earlier. It lost $13.5 million in that time, up from $89,000 earlier. The sale gave the company a market capitalization of $1.63 billion. Glen Meakem, FreeMarket's CEO and President, is a 35-year old Harvard MBA and former officer in the United States Army Reserve who served in the Gulf War. He worked as an associate at McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, and held positions with General Electric Co. and Kraft-General Foods Corp. Meakem holds 10.4 percent of the shares following the sale. Well-Known Backers FreeMarkets' board of directors includes L. John Doerr, 48, a general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. He joined in October. FreeMarkets says more than 2,000 suppliers from more than 30 countries have participated in its auctions. Still, more than half the sales come during the first nine months of this year came from two clients: GM, the world's largest automaker, and United Technologies, which owns the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine manufacturer and the helicopter maker Sikorsky. FreeMarkets will trade under the symbol ``FMKT' on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp. and Wit Capital Corp. also helped manage the share sale. Dec/10/1999 11:22 To:H James Morris who wrote (86981) From: William Harmond Friday, Dec 10, 1999 12:02 PM View Replies (4) \| Respond to of 118211 Bought FreeMarkets @ 244