To: Jenna who wrote (29543 ) 3/25/1999 11:41:00 PM From: ken hui Respond to of 120523
'Net' Value Of AOL-Verio Is Difficult To Determine Date: 3/25/99 Author: Doug Tsuruoka It was just another in an endless stream of Internet announcements. Verio Inc. this month unveiled a pact with America Online Inc. Under the three-year deal, Verio exclusively gets to set up and maintain Web sites for AOL's small-business customers. For this standing with the world's largest Internet service provider, Verio will pay AOL $42.5 million - and an undisclosed share of the revenue Verio gets through its association with AOL. As with any Net deal, determining a price is an art, not a science. Why $42.5 million? AOL won't say at all. Verio won't say much. Analysts chance only a few educated guesses. In the end, no one - perhaps including the companies - quite knows. ''We're still making things up as we go along,'' said Preston Dodd, an analyst at Internet market researcher Jupiter Communications LLP in New York. One thing is certain: More companies are willing to pay millions of dollars for a chance to be in the right Internet place at the right Internet time. Verio is a leader in providing Internet services to smaller businesses and creating and managing Web sites for these customers. But it's a virtual unknown. Hooking up with AOL - one of the Internet's best-known names - is a quick way to gain recognition. Verio and AOL will develop a joint Web site that offers electronic-commerce services for small and midsize business subscribers. It will be linked directly to the main AOL Web site. Verio right away gets to sell its Web hosting and maintenance services to the 7,000 small-business subscribers of AOL and its CompuServe unit. They're now getting the limited small-business services AOL has offered on its own. There was no magic formula in defining the payment as $42.5 million and the percentage of revenue figure, says Sean Brophy, vice president of corporate development for Verio. The two sides reached agreement the old-fashioned way: bargaining. ''We got there through a series of puts and takes,'' Brophy said. ''We put something to them; we took something back.'' He won't say how the $40 million came about, but the $2.5 million vaguely derives from this: Analysts reckon Verio's basic small-business service costs about $25 a month. That's $300 a year. Now, consider Verio's immediate access to those 7,000 AOL-CompuServe small-business customers. Assuming Verio keeps them all for a year, it would realize $2.1 million in revenue. Add another $400,000 for good measure, and the $2.5 million was reached. The percentage of Verio revenue that AOL gets is a big unknown. In fact, sources say that percentage might not even be set yet. But one way to look at the $42.5 million, says Forrester Research Inc. analyst David Cooperstein, is that it's what Verio was willing to bet for the chance to bring in more than $1.3 billion in business in the next three years. Why $1.3 billion? Aside from the 7,000 customers getting some small-business services from AOL, the online service counts 3 million small and midsize businesses among its and CompuServe's 18 million subscribers. If - a huge if -Verio can sign up half for its basic $25 a month, it'll find a cool $450 million per year coming into its coffers. ''I'd say $450 million on a $42.5 million investment would be a pretty nice return,'' Cooperstein said. So, Verio got a good deal? Well, he also says that ''clearly'' Verio is paying a premium for this opportunity. Indeed, Verio logged a mere $53 million in sales last year. For a company its size, $42.5 million is a big, big bet. Verio's Brophy, though, says the number of AOL-CompuServe business subscribers is closer to 4 million than 3 million. He also notes that AOL believes the deal is worth much more than $42.5 million to Verio. So, undoubtedly, does Verio. Remember, tiny Verio gets full use of mighty AOL's marketing machine. Among other things, that lowers the number of people Verio has to hire as it grows. There's also the fact that AOL likely had another big bargaining chip: a bunch of companies from which to choose for such a deal. Verio has many rivals of similar size. They include Santa Clara, Calif.-based Exodus Communications Inc. and Beltsville, Md.-based Digex Inc. Without putting any numbers to these concepts, Verio's Brophy says the deal was valued according to four principles: Churn rate, or the rate at which AOL-Verio will gain, and lose, customers. Revenue run rate, or how much AOL subscribers can be expected to pay for small-business services. Expected profitability. Upgrade potential, or the rate at which small-business customers will seek more such services. As the AOL- Verio deal shows, Net companies are juggling young concepts like churn and upgrade potential. (C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc. Metadata: VRIO AOL EXDS DIGX I/3576 I/3642 E/IBD E/