Glenn, I have to go out. Believe it or not??
Nothing has really changed other than the following.
Before I post you this. Why are you posting negative concerns?
Please remember that we are bullet proof. It bugs the hell out of me that I continue to keep so much in $cash.
>> The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Barnes & Noble Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings rose almost 82 percent from a year ago, boosted by a big gain from German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG's purchase of a 50 percent stake in barnesandnoble.com.
The New York-based company said Thursday that it earned $106 million, or $1.47 a share, in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 30, compared with $58.3 million, or 81 cents a share a year ago.
Sales were $1.03 billion, up from $968.53 million a year ago.
The 1998 results included a gain of 52 cents a share from the Bertelsmann deal. The 1997 results included a charge of 17 cents a share for early extinguishment of debt.
Excluding the gain from the Bertelsmann deal, but including a loss of 12 cents a share from barnesandnoble.com, Barnes & Noble earned 95 cents a share in the fourth quarter, meeting Wall Street analysts' estimates.
The retailer had warned Wall Street last month that its profits wouldn't meet expectations. The good news pushed Barnes & Noble stock up $3.37 1/2, or 12 percent, to $30.50 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.
For the year, Barnes & Noble earned $92.4 million, or $1.29 a share, compared with $53.2 million, or 76 cents a share, in 1997. Sales were $3 billion, up from $2.80 billion.
Barnes & Noble said its superstore sales rose 12 percent to $2.5 billion last year and contributed 84 percent to total retail sales in 1998. Sales at stores open at least a year -- also known as same-store sales -- rose 5 percent.
Same-store sales at its B. Dalton stores, which are smaller and usually found in malls, declined 1.4 percent for the year.
Sales at barnesandnoble.com climbed 381 percent last year to $70.2 million. While its sales were better than expected, it still lagged behind the $609 million in sales at No. 1 online bookseller Amazon.com.
Barnes & Noble is awaiting approval from the Federal Trade Commission on its $600 million bid for Ingram Book Group, the largest U.S. book distributor to retailers. That deal would allow Barnes & Noble to deliver books faster and more cost-effectively.
As of Jan. 30, the company operated 521 Barnes & Noble stores and 484 B. Dalton bookstores. During 1998, 50 Barnes & Noble stores were opened and 13 were closed, of which 11 were relocated. B. Dalton opened four stores and closed 43 stores.
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Deerfield, Illinois, March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, said it expects to begin selling prescriptions and other merchandise on line this fall, as it faces increasing competition from new Internet retailers.
Walgreen already runs an Internet site that lets customers order and check on the status of their prescription refills, which they then pick up in a local Walgreens store. Its expanded site will offer full-service ordering and delivery for all prescriptions and some other goods including health and beauty products and vitamins.
The Deerfield, Illinois-based company, which gets about half its $15.3 billion in annual sales from prescriptions, is developing the site to better compete with a pending wave of Internet-based pharmacy retailers, such as Drugstore.com and PlanetRX, as well as expanded Internet service from direct competitors such as CVS Corp. and Rite Aid Corp.
''With these sites coming online, it's focused us there,'' said Walgreen spokesman Michael Polzin. He noted that a team of developers at Walgreen has been working to expand the company's Web site since late last year.
Online companies such as Drugstore.com, minority owned by Internet bookseller Amazon.com Inc., said they can better serve customers than actual drugstores, because people can more easily compare prices on a range of products, including brand-name drugs, and get more information about drugs and their side- effects than they would in a regular store.
''There's a gap between what traditional retailers are offering and what customers want,'' said Debby Fry Wilson, a spokeswoman for Redmond, Washington-based Drugstore.com. She said customer traffic at the site, which opened for business two weeks ago, ''has maintained at a very solid rate.''
Walgreen is confident it stand up to the challenge of Internet-only sites, Polzin said.
''The biggest advantage we have is our 98-year reputation, and our brand name,'' he said, noting that Walgreen's ''multi- channel availability'' will give customers a choice of buying in the store, online or by mail order.
Deerfield-based Walgreen sold about 6 million of its 226 million prescriptions through its mail-order business last year.
Its shares rose 11/16 to 30 13/16.
17:25:02 03/11/1999
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Washington, March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Fashionmall.com Inc., the latest Web retailing concept seeking to go public, filed to sell 40 percent of its shares in a $21 million initial offering.
The New York company operates an ''online shopping mall'' where retailers and manufacturers, the mall's ''tenants,'' offer brand-name clothes, shoes and accessories appealing to upscale shoppers, the company said in filing its initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fashionmall.com is one of several Web retailing ventures filing to go public recently as investors, optimistic about prospects for Internet business, have made hot stocks out of Amazon.com Inc., the No. 1 online bookseller, and other online businesses like auctioneer eBay Inc.
At www.fashionmall.com, retailers get to pitch to a targeted audience while shoppers can find upscale retailers and brands -- like Marks & Spencer Plc's Brooks Brothers, Delia's Inc. and Liz Claiborne Inc. -- on a single site, the company's filing said.
''We try to be a benefit to both sides of the equation,'' said Benjamin Narasin, founder, chairman and chief executive.
For its part, fashionmall.com, which opened for business in July 1995, collects ''rent'' from vendors as well as revenue for advertising aimed at shoppers. Revenue increased 64 percent last year to $2.1 million -- with more than half coming from ''barter arrangements'' in which the company traded ads with other sites or publications.
''However, we expect to derive significant revenue from expansion of our direct electronic commerce sales of apparel and related merchandise through our own online stores,'' fashionmall.com said in its IPO filing.
New Sites
Its first such store is www.outletmall.com, where the company recently began offering ''excess inventory and end-of- season goods,'' purchased from manufacturers and retailers, the SEC filing said. The company said it plans a joint venture with Diplomat Direct Marketing Corp. to develop another site aimed at teen-age consumers.
Fashionmall.com has been profitable the last two years, according to the filing. Net income rose fourfold to $14,000 last year, from $3,000 in 1997, when revenue was $1.3 million.
Still, the company expects to slip back into losses as it prepares to spend heavily for advertising, developing its online stores and hiring staff, according to the filing. The company foresees ''losses from operations and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future,'' the filing said.
Narasin, fashionmall.com's founder and CEO, declined to forecast future results.
Fashionmall.com filed to sell 3 million of its common shares in the IPO for $7 each. That price would give the company an implied market value of $52.5 million, based on 7.5 million shares to be outstanding after the initial offering.
Gruntal & Co. will underwrite the sale of shares, which fashionmall.com plans to have listed for trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol FASH, the company's SB-2 registration statement said.
Fashionmall.com expects to receive $18.9 million, after expenses, and plans to use most of the funds to expand its business. It will set aside $4.2 million for advertising, about $3.7 million to hire staff and $1.6 million to upgrade software and facilities. Another $1 million will go to repay debt, as well as $366,000 to pay deferred salary to managers and repay loans from shareholders. The company will have $8 million left for working capital, according to the filing.
Narasin, the 33-year-old chairman and CEO, developed fashionmall.com in 1994 as he worked on ways to use the Internet to promote a clothing line he'd founded called Boston Prepatory Co. Back then the Net was just text, although part of it -- the nascent Web -- was developing the ability to display pictures. Narasin saw his chance, he said in an interview.
''The opportunity was much greater than promoting an apparel company,'' he said. ''The opportunity was to provide a solution for an industry.''
The founder and CEO expects to retain a 46 percent stake in fashionmall.com after the IPO with about 3.4 million shares, according to the SEC filing. At $7 a share, his holdings would be valued at $23.9 million. <<
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