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Technology Stocks : Audio and Radio on the Internet- NAVR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MyAssets who wrote (6167)	2/4/1999 3:23:00 AM
From: fatheroz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27722

new to the bench. been in the tree over there since november though. found this @ Mpls Star. Published Wednesday, February 3, 1999 Navarre Corp. expected to file IPO for Net Radio unit Eric Wieffering / Star Tribune Navarre Corp., hoping to take advantage of the still-hot market for new Internet issues, is expected to file a registration statement for an initial public offering of the shares of its NetRadio online unit early next week. Details of the filing -- such as how many shares would be sold and the offering price -- were not available. Observers familiar with the situation said Chicago-based Everen Securities will manage the offering. An Everen spokesman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Navarre. The filing has been anticipated since early December, when Eric Paulson, Navarre's chief executive officer, told CNBC that a NetRadio offering probably would occur within 60 days. In a conference call with analysts last week, Paulson said he was "reasonably comfortable" about meeting that timetable. New Hope-based Navarre owns 85 percent of NetRadio. The remaining 15 percent is owned by ValueVision International of Eden Prairie. Shares of Navarre have soared since November, when it became clear that the company was reviving efforts to take NetRadio public. The price more than doubled on Nov. 27, to $12.18¾, after Paulson confirmed efforts to sell NetRadio shares. Paulson and other Navarre insiders took advantage of the sudden interest in Navarre stock to sell their own shares. Paulson sold 100,000 shares at $12 on Nov. 27. Alfred Teo, a director, sold 200,000 shares priced between $11.63 and $12.13. Navarre shares rose 12.5 cents Tuesday to close at $16.75. NetRadio bills itself as the first Internet-only radio network, and is currently one of the largest on-demand "Webcasters" of originally programmed audio content, with more than 120 channels of music and information. NetRadio gets in excess of 20 million page views per month, Paulson told analysts, and the average time on the site is between 30 minutes and 40 minutes. NetRadio sells advertising on each of its channels, and it also sells software and music. The product sales are a natural fit with Navarre, a supplier of music and software to retailers and other online merchants. NetRadio will face stiff competition from other established music retailers, such as CDNow and Amazon.com. It also will inevitably be compared to Broadcast.com, which carries other broadcasters' programming and which has seen its stock rise from $72 to more than $140 since the end of 1998. But Axxel Knutson, a New Jersey-based Internet analyst, thinks NetRadio's combination of highly targeted content and electronic commerce capabilities should make it an attractive offering. "Their technology is way ahead of everyone else's," Knutson said. "The key two, three or four years out will be building market share." But building NetRadio's presence has been expensive for Navarre. It lost almost $4 million in its third quarter that ended Dec. 28, and attributed most of the loss to NetRadio. Navarre, which currently carries NetRadio at no value on its balance sheet, previously has indicated that it wants to reduce its stake to less than 50 percent. © Copyright 1999 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. niteall gotta go roost...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz t.o.