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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Bikers Dream Inc. --- BIKR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Miller who wrote (57)	1/5/1999 2:45:00 PM
From: JohnO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 201

From www.iionline.com 1/5/99 TAUB TALK: The Next Hot Internet Stock? Psst! Want to know the next company to announce its internet strategy? Bikers Dream (NASDAQ: BIKR). Never heard of it? How could that be? It closed Monday at $2.56 on the NASDAQ Small-Cap Market. So, it now has a whopping $14 million market cap and it trades nearly 38,000 shares per day. However, life as an obscure listing should change later this week when the company announces its internet site. And, are you sitting? The company expects the site to make money within one month. That's what they insist. What is Bikers Dream? It makes and sells the larger heavy-duty motorcycles. Its Ultra Cycles division makes eight different models. The company then sells them through its five owned and operated Bikers Dream Superstores, 35 independently owned Superstores and 35 independent Ultra Dealers. The bikes sell for between $16,000 and $25,000, much more than Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HDI)bikes. The company has turned around from a money-loser to a money-maker since Herm Rosenman took over as chairman and CEO more than a year ago. In the third-quarter of 1998, which ended in September, Bikers Dream earned nearly $603,000 on $9.7 million in revenue. Last year, it lost $858,000. For the nine months, revenue swelled 87% to $22.7 million while net income came in at nearly $163,000. Ah, but what about the internet? Does it plan to sell these pricey bikes on the internet? Sort of. As early as Wednesday, the company plans to announce that it is launching its internet site-www.Bikers-Dream.com. This is an extension of its current Superstore business, which peddles its proprietary-made parts through its retail outlets, as well as its catalogue business. The company also plans to sell merchandise, clothing such as T-shirts and other stuff that bikers crave. Visitors could also buy a bike on the set, but the company doesn't expect to sell many this way. Rosenman figures that the heavyweight cruiser business in general generates $7.2 billion in revenue per year, of which Harley owns 40%. This breaks out to roughly $2 billion in new bikes, $700 million in used bikes and about $4 billion in parts. So, more than $2 billion in parts are up for grabs each year for the non-Harley folks. But, Rosenman isn't just staking out the parts and accessories business. He wants to be 'the' site for bikers. 'We will also offer motorcycle chat sessions,' adds Rosenman. 'We want all of the aura of the biking lifestyle (and allow visitors to) participate. We will be the only one to do e-commerce (for heavyweight cruisers).' He will even offer prospective bike customers on-line credit applications and then provide instant approval (or denial). In conjunction with the web site announcement, as early as next week the company plans to announce a marketing agreement with iMall (NASDAQ: IMAL), the online shopping portal which last week announced a marketing agreement with AT&T (NYSE: T).The idea is that iMall visitors will be directed to Bikers-Dream.com. When will Bikers-Dream.com make money, if ever? 'We will make money a month after it's up,' Rosenman predicts. 'Our parts have super high margins which will take care of (the site's) capital costs.' How hot can this be? For one thing, this is no PinkMonkey.com. And just look at what happened on Monday when Active Apparel Group (NASDAQ: AAGP), a clothing manufacturer, announced its internet site. All its stock did was zoom up from $1.25 to $15.13, before retreating to around $11.50. Looking further out, Rosenman hopes to spin off his manufacturing company. Are you ready, day traders?