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Technology Stocks : CheckFree (CKFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: g_m10 who wrote (3213)	4/8/1998 7:42:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 8545

Checkfree Stock Up On Divestment News April 8, 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ American Banker via NewsEdge Corporation : Shares of Checkfree Holdings Corp. rose 27% last week after the company announced plans to divest several nonessential businesses. Checkfree said seven software products are on the block. One of them, item processing, already has a taker, Conix Systems Inc. The others up for sale are: corporate cash management, wire transfer, leasing, imaging, mortgage, and safe box accounting. These units produced about $34 million in annual revenue for the year that ended in June 1997, and are expected to generate $36 million to $38 million in the year ending this June. The divestitures are expected to be completed by June 30. The Atlanta-based company said it wants to concentrate on its emerging electronic commerce business. Checkfree is "on track and executing along our plans," said Jim Douglass, Checkfree's chief financial officer. Wall Street had a "positive reception of our divestiture," he added. "We're up four or five points in the last couple of days." Cato Carpenter, an analyst at BT Alex. Brown in New York, promptly raised Checkfree's stock rating to 'strong buy' from 'buy.' In a report, the analyst wrote that Checkfree could potentially capture about 35% of the electronic bill presentment and bill payment market, a sharp rise from the 6% it has now. "Sloppy entry of MSFDC (the joint venture of Microsoft and First Data Corp) into the marketplace has served to accelerate adoption of electronic bill presentment without presenting a meaningful immediate threat," he wrote in the report. "We continue to expect the company to break even in the fiscal third quarter of 1998 (ended March 31) and to be profitable in the fiscal fourth quarter," Mr. Carpenter wrote, adding that the divestitures "confirm this view." Copyright c 1998 American Banker, Inc. All Rights Reserved. americanbanker.com By CAROL POWER [Copyright 1998, American Banker]