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To: GST who wrote (122784)	4/3/2001 5:20:49 PM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

Gst, if you're wondering what happened to Mark Fowler... he used to own a piece of Wine.com:-) >NAPA, Calif., April 3 (Reuters) - The days of wine and roses are over for Internet wine merchant Wine.com, which has fired 160 of its 245 employees and embarked on a "streamlining plan", a company news release said. A local newspaper reported on Tuesday that the company was already $10 million in debt and could soon be forced to seek bankruptcy protection. Wine.com, a closely held company backed by powerful investors including Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT), had hoped to dominate online sales of wine but has run into a thicket of regulations governing the sale and shipment of alcohol. Wine.com had already laid off 75 workers in January following its August 2000 merger with rival Wineshopper.com. The latest round of layoffs, affecting about two-thirds of the firm's employees, took effect on Monday and were spread across locations and departments, a company news release said. "The Wine.com Senior Management team has created a streamlined business plan and we are in the process of implementing that plan," the release said, adding that it would not comment on the status of any individual executive. "The Wine.com Web site continues to take orders and we continue to ship products to our customers," the release said. Despite that optimism, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported Tuesday that Wine.com had burned through more than $150 million to end up $10 million in debt, and could face moves by creditors to either foreclose or force the company to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while it develops a repayment plan. Founded in 1994 as Virtual Vineyards, Wine.com looked ready to become the Internet's chief one-stop shop for wine after it completed its merger with Wineshopper.com last summer and secured an additional $18 million to finance growth. But the downturn in high-tech financing hit the company hard and it was unable to raise any further money. The Press Democrat, quoting sources close to the company, said Wine.com's restructuring would include slashing its current inventory of some 2,000 wines to focus on a narrow selection of fast-moving brands, as well as cutting overhead and a debt restructuring package. The company also hopes to raise cash by liquidating more than $5 million in inventory, discounting the wines heavily on its Web site and shopping the backlog to wholesalers and retailers, the Press Democrat said.