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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Societe Anonyme/No Pennies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TokyoMex who wrote (5504)	10/6/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: FawnVu	Respond to of 119973

Joe, watch BKS for a play tomorrow....See Breaking News today regarding their on-line Internet.. Tuesday October 6, 7:23 pm Eastern Time FOCUS-Bertelsmann buys stake in Barnes & Noble online (Recasts; adds context, comments from both companies' CEOs and analysis) By Suchita Nayar NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (Reuters) - German media giant Bertelsmann AG (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BTGGg.F) has paid $200 million to buy a 50 percent stake in the online venture of the bookselling heavyweight Barnes & Noble Inc (NYSE:BKS - news), the companies said on Tuesday. The world's largest bookseller temporarily postponed the widely-anticipated initial public offering of its online venture, barnesandnoble.com, in light of the announcement, which came after the market closed. The partnership, which reverses Bertelsmann's previous plans to enter the U.S. online market on its own, caught analysts slightly off guard. ''I'm a little bit surprised since Barnes & Noble just announced the news about its IPO a few weeks back,'' said Ken Fleming, a research analyst at the IPO fund of Renaissance Capital, based in Greenwich, Conn. Analysts expect the combination of Bertelsmann's resources with the strength of Barnes & Noble as a catalyst in the developing barnesandnoble.com as a major U.S. online bookseller. ''This alliance is a real competitive threat in online bookselling,'' Fleming told Reuters. Under the terms of the deal, both companies will also pool $100 million toward seed money in barnesandnoble.com, which is touted to have the potential to grow into a profitable high flyer like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN - news). Further, Bertelsmann would throw in certain U.S. resources to barnesandnoble.com from its previously announced BooksOnline service, Barnes & Noble said. Bertelsmann plans to move forward separately with the BooksOnline, its answer to the growing demand for online retail books, in several European countries, it said. ''Bertelsmann's extensive expertise in direct marketing and preeminent position as a media company will strengthen our capital structure, enhance the quality of our offering, and, most profoundly, provide barnesandnoble.com with immediate access to global markets,'' said Barnes & Noble Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leonard Riggio. Bertelsmann Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Middelhoff added: ''Books have always been our core business, and we believe our e-commerce initiatives will benefit consumers, publishers and the entire book industry.'' This is the second recent strategic alliance for Bertelsmann with a U.S. company. Earlier, it closed the deal to buy the giant U.S. publisher Random House from privately-held Advance Publications Inc. Barnes & Noble stock rose 19 cents to close at $23.56 on the New York Stock Exchange, before the announcement.