Hi Wiz and John. Good post from both of you! Yes FNTN is an “emerging media and communications company” as stated in their Form: SB-2 Filing Date: 2/26/99 . This surly is not new to any of it's investors or at least it should not be for those who have done their own due diligence and research. The one thing that any emerging company is in need of is additional monies for expansion and growth and FNTN is no different. I for one would much sooner seen them offer additional shares for expansion rather then taking on a heavy debt load and have to pay interest on that debt.
I like Wiz and John among others have chosen to let FNTN management do what needs to be done in order to further the interests of FNTN and it's investors. I fully realize that this company is a OTC:BB stock with all the inherent risks and potential rewards attach to it. I look forward to the rewards.
Regards,
Bill Fortune III
The following are excerpts from the Form: SB-2 in regards to their business plan, which is why I personally invested in FNTN in the first place. (This might be of interest to some)
BUSINESS PLAN:
Prospectus Summary
The following summarizes certain information in this Prospectus. The more detailed description elsewhere in the Prospectus governs the matters discussed in this summary. Unless otherwise specified, all information in this Prospectus assumes an offering price of $2.00. You should read the entire Prospectus carefully, including the "Risk Factors" section and the financial statements and notes thereto.The Company
Financial Intranet, Inc. ("Financial Intranet") is an emerging media and communications company providing specialized services to the investment industry. Financial Intranet's headquarters are based in Ardsley, New York.
Financial Intranet offers services to a number of groups in the investment industry:
o For mutual funds and investment managers, Financial Intranet
offers an opportunity to distribute product information and
provide training to broker/dealers and other financial
advisors through interactive video teleconferencing and the
transmission of video-on-demand, text and digitally stored
documents. Financial Intranet provides these services through
state-of-the-art data transmission over a high-speed, secure
intranet. Among other things, Financial Intranet's services
help mutual funds manage the distribution cost of sales and
marketing materials and ensure that broker/dealers have the
most current information available.
o For broker/dealers and financial advisors, Financial Intranet
offers communications services, including voice and data
transmission, at prices intended to be competitive with
others in the telecommunications industry, but with
value-added features, including immediate access to
information about mutual funds as discussed above, video
teleconferencing and leads to potential new customers who
visit Financial Intranet's web site. These customer leads
will be matched with suitable broker/dealers or financial
advisors using Financial Intranet's data mining technology.
Financial Intranet intends to expand its product offering to
broker/dealers to include continuing education and license
exam training material in video-on-demand format.
o For prospective investors, Financial Intranet maintains a web
site at www.fntn.com. The web site offers delayed quotes on
securities prices, advanced charting of security performance,
portfolio management tools and a searchable mutual fund
database. Users who register may participate in Financial
Intranet's "chat rooms" and utilize Financial Intranet's
message board.
Financial Intranet's revenues will come from two primary sources:
o Communications services are one of the largest recurring
expenses in the brokerage industry. Financial Intranet
resells interstate and international voice, data and video
communications services to broker\dealers and financial
advisors pursuant to tariffs filed with the Federal
Communications Commission. Financial Intranet resells
intrastate voice, data and video communications services
pursuant to tariffs filed with the various states in which
it is authorized to provide such services, including
California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Currently,
Financial Intranet resells its communications services to
approximately 20 customers which to date have generated only
limited revenues.
o Mutual funds and other entities selling financial products
use Financial Intranet to deliver material, including video
presentations, text and digitally stored documents, through
a cost-effective network to broker/dealers and financial
advisors who can distribute or recommend their products.
Financial Intranet intends to charge for such delivery as its subscriber base grows.
To accomplish these objectives, Financial Intranet has established a strategic relationship with Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme Ges.m.b.H. and several of its subsidiaries, most significantly Siemens Information and Communication Products LLC and Siemens Telecom Network. The Siemens companies (sometimes referred to as "Siemens") have installed a fully integrated hardware and software system at Financial Intranet's data center in Ardsley, New York. Siemens manages the system and has trained Financial Intranet's internal technical team. Financial Intranet and Siemens have developed applications based on Siemens's proprietary video-on-demand and data mining technology.
See "Business -- Technology and Business Partners."
Financial Intranet operates primarily in the eastern United States. Financial Intranet intends to expand throughout the United States and possibly overseas (See "Business -- Expansion"). While Financial Intranet's initial focus is on the financial services community, Financial Intranet believes its services
will be attractive to other industries.
EXPANSION
To date, Financial Intranet has concentrated its attention on the investment industry. Financial Intranet believes this industry is the most likely to benefit from its information and communications services and that the investment industry presents the most immediate opportunity for revenue.
Financial Intranet hopes that as it becomes established as a provider of financial services information, it will be able to capture a larger portion of the long distance resale business.
In addition Financial Intranet hopes to expand its intranet services to other industries and associations. There are many other markets (e.g. legal, real estate, insurance, travel and entertainment) which Financial Intranet believes can benefit from its telecommunications products and from participating
in an industry-centered intranet.
Financial Intranet intends to expand from the Eastern United States throughout the United States and possibly Europe and the Pacific Rim. Overseas expansion may entail adding data centers to service those markets and provide Financial Intranet with a redundant data source.
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
RESALE OF LONG DISTANCE AND LOCAL COMMUNICATION SERVICES
According to the Telecommunications Resellers Association, resellers are among the fastest growing segment of the telecommunications industry, having grown at a rate of 16% between 1994-96 as compared to a 6% rate for the overall
long distance industry. According to the Telecommunications Resellers Association, while resellers have historically engaged in the resale of long distance communications only, they are now adding other services such as local resale, pagers, travel cards and PCS phones/cellular phones. Financial Intranet believes that its value-added services provide an advantage over otherresellers.
A key element of Financial Intranet's services to the investment community is the resale of discount, long distance telephony and other communication services to broker/dealers and financial advisors. Voice, video-on-demand services, text, and digitally-stored documents share the same network connection to each customer's office. Financial Intranet has reseller agreements with MCI WorldCom Inc. and Frontier Corp. The agreement with MCI/WorldCom expires in March 2001 and may be extended on a month-to-month basis thereafter. Financial Intranet can also enter into such agreements with other carriers who may be more competitive in specific geographical areas or with respect to specific services. Resale of communication services has been the principal source of Financial Intranet's revenue to date and is expected to be one of the major revenue producing products for Financial Intranet during the
initial years of operation.
Financial Intranet is permitted to provide interstate and international long distance service. In order to provide intrastate toll telecommunications services and in anticipation of entering the local resale business, Financial Intranet tariffed in New York, Florida, Texas and California. It is registered in New Jersey and Colorado (no tariffs being required) and has tariffs pending in Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and is legally permitted to offer intrastate toll telecommunications services in four other states without filing a tariff by either filing a registration or commencing operations. None of these authorizations include the authority to provide Financial Intranet's telecommunications services on a local exchange, non-toll basis for which separate applications and/or tariff filings are required.
VIDEO ON DEMAND TRAINING AND MARKETING
Financial Intranet provides distance video-on-demand training and marketing applications. These applications use stored video content, and are available on demand to Financial Intranet's customers via its private intranet and to individual investors at its web site. Content is delivered at different speeds depending on its destination. Broker/dealers receive video and detailed sales fulfillment material at high speed and have direct contact with mutual funds. Financial Intranet's video image will occupy one quarter of the screen of the desktop computer and will not interfere with access to real time financial data. Individuals have access to more general information and in addition to stored video, can access certain digitally-stored documents such as prospectuses which are delivered at the transmission speed available to them.
The video content informs broker/dealers and financial advisors about various investment products. In addition, Financial Intranet intends to use a portion of the proceeds of this offering to develop a system for delivering continuing education training to meet NASD requirements. As conceived, this system will track the progress of a broker/dealer's registered representatives
and provide courses appropriate to their requirements and skill levels.
VIDEO CONFERENCING
Point to point and point to multi-point video conferencing may be provided to facilitate both marketing and training. A client, such as a mutual fund, is be able to schedule a point to multi-point live video conference. Scheduling information will be accessible to the client on Financial Intranet's private intranet.
Financial Intranet's intranet can transmit full screen downstream video (originator to viewer) at 30 frames per second. The upstream video (viewers to originator) is delivered at 5 frames per second, a sufficient quality for the originator to be able to identify who is asking a question.
DISTANCE LEARNING
Distance learning is essentially a combination of the video conferencing and video-on-demand services and may be augmented with the addition of electronic blackboard technology.
INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR WEB SITE
Financial Intranet will recruit and qualify prospective investors as leads for the broker/dealers, financial advisors, mutual funds, thereby expanding their number of potential clients. The web site is essentially a mechanism to deliver multimedia information and education to individual investors while capturing information about those investors. A continuous background feature, partly developed in-house, partly obtained from third parties, is the provision of 20 minute-delayed stock quotes, exchange information and market news and information about mutual funds.
DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY
Financial Intranet keeps track of the activities of its broker/dealer subscribers and the visitors to its web site. It obtains information provided by investors who register, and maintains information about specific materials downloaded by broker/dealers and registered investors and subsequent actions relating to the information received.
Financial Intranet is able to use this data to provide customer leads, surveys and reports based on criteria provided by its broker/dealer and financial advisor customers through the use of its proprietary data mining system. Financial Intranet believes its ability to convert the data it gathers into practical knowledge gives Financial Intranet an advantage over its competitors in the communication service resale industry.
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