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To: GST who wrote (130285)	8/19/2001 9:41:00 AM
From: re3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

from the toronto star today... Message 16230839

To: GST who wrote (130285)	8/19/2001 11:27:52 AM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

>the ONLY safe place to be is out of this ugly market I disagree. The liquidation business looks great to me. >August 19, 2001 The dot-coms may be gone, but their assets have not been forgotten. A new boom industry has emerged to profit from all the technology companies that went bust. Furniture, computers and assorted leftovers from defunct dot-coms are flooding into auction houses, bankruptcy sales and other second-hand markets. Promotional paraphernalia from the New Economy's flotsam is featured on eBay. Embroidered shirts, Dr. Koop stock certificates and a slew of sock puppets are all going to the highest bidder. Bid4Assets.com, a Virginia-based online auction site, has become a surprising beneficiary of the dot-com downturn. When the company started almost two years ago, insiders never imagined that so much business would come from other Internet companies, said Dave Marchick, Bid4Assets' executive vice president. Now about 25 percent of Bid4Assets' business comes from washed-up technology companies in all sectors. High-end e-tailer Boo.com and Musicmaker.com are just a few of the companies that sold their inventory through Bid4Assets. About 300 CD burners from Musicmaker.com went for 30 cents on the dollar, Marchick said. There are plenty of other deals to be had as well. Herman Miller's Aeron chairs -- often considered the poster chair for dot-com excesses -- can retail for as much as $1,200. On Bid4Assets, they have sold for as little as $500. Dell laptops have sold for as little as $800 even though the list price runs as high as $2,000. Cisco routers are going cheap, too, Marchick said. "A lot of our products are being sold to the next wave of entrepreneurial companies," Marchick said. But it's not just high-end tech equipment that's available. Bankruptcysales.com says the domain name for maternity Web site thatglow.com is for sale, as well as almost $350,000 worth of clothing and cosmetics for pregnant women. Online auction sites aren't the only ones assisting troubled dot-coms unload their assets. Development Specialists Inc. has been in the business of bailing out companies since 1976, said Geoff Berman, an executive vice president. While much of its clientele is of the non-technology ilk, Berman said, DSI has seen an increase in business from the dot-com implosion. Among DSI's clients is Webvan, the bankrupt online grocer that is now selling off its vast assets. "I've liquidated a better part of a dozen dot-coms in the last year," Berman said. The liquidation process is complicated because Internet companies often lease their equipment, furniture and office space. The only thing that remains are the less tangible assets such as a company's trademarks, domain names or patents. "The real issue in dot-coms in terms of assets is, 'How much does the dot-com really own?'" Berman said. "Much of it are things you can't touch, but they are assets." That means the value of a dot-com's intellectual property is based on unpredictable market forces. Berman said he's had some dot-coms that got practically nothing, while others garnered millions for their technology. "It just depends if there's already an interest. Anytime you've got two people interested in the same thing, it's worth more," Berman said. "If no one else wants the technology, you aren't going to get much." The key is to negotiate from a position of strength, said Richard Rodnick, chairman and CEO of Irvine-based EquiCo, an investment banking firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions of private companies. Over the last year, Rodnick said he has received several frantic calls from dot-com executives facing a money crunch. By that time, it's usually too late, Rodnick said. "You are not going to find many investors willing to put up millions of dollars based on a weekend meeting," Rodnick said. But there are plenty of opportunities for companies with an orderly exit strategy, even in the wake of the Internet crash. EquiCo recently closed a $115 million deal for a financial software company and has worked on several high-tech manufacturing acquisitions. "Our business has not been hurt," Rodnick said. "It has been helped."

To: GST who wrote (130285)	8/19/2001 9:08:17 PM
From: schrodingers_cat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>Turn out the lights... Yeah, this isn't the best time for nasdaq to be breaking major support levels, not with news vacuum season dead ahead, with warning season following right behind. Not to mention that we're heading into seasonally the two weakest months of the year. The only thing that nasdaq has going for it is that everybody on SI seems to expect it to go down...and what everybody expects usually doesn't happen. I for one find it real hard to see this market doing anything good in the next two months, so if it doesn't drop it probably goes nowhere. BTW I think the lights were turned out a long time ago...now its time to smash the lightbulbs, strip out the wiring and sell it for scrap!! ;-)