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Microcap & Penny Stocks : XSNI - X-Stream Network -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Evans who wrote (407)	5/12/1999 12:23:00 AM
From: Jeffrey D	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3519

Are you ready or this? From the 05/02/99 "Express" newspaper. All you ever wanted to know about XSNI, Lehman, Nasdaq and the XSNI history. Flaky history. You be the judge. Jeff lineone.net << X-Stream patience may pay off at last By Nick Fletcher Markets Editor LONG-suffering shareholders in advertising business Firecrest, which holds the dubious honour of being the first company thrown off the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), may finally see some payback this year. Through a series of deals, Firecrest has been reinvented as X-Stream, a go-go Internet stock that was the first UK company to provide free Internet services. Now X-Stream has appointed Lehman Brothers to advise on a flotation on the US Nasdaq and European Easdaq markets in late summer. Analysts say the company could be valued at several hundred million pounds, using rivals such as Dixons' Freeserve as a guide. Dixons recently said it may float a minority stake in Freeserve, prompting brokers to put a £2.4billion tag on the fledgling business. On that basis X-Stream could be worth anything up to £600million. It has about 320,000 subscribers compared with Freeserve's 1.5 million. X-Stream chairman Robert Manning was cautious about such heady valuations. He said: "We have no idea of a value other than the perception in the US marketplace of such companies. But I would be disappointed if it was not a substantial amount." Manning is aware the company must move quickly to take advantage of the current boom in Internet shares and raise extra capital. "A public share offering is our preferred route," he said. "And we want to do it sooner rather than later." There is also the threat of increased competition, with new no-fee Internet service providers appearing almost daily. "We were the first to offer free Internet access and we were also the first to offer free calls," claimed Manning. "We hope to continue being at the forefront of Internet services." He maintains the company should be seen as a "portal" - a service offering its own content and advertising as well as access to other web addresses - rather than just a free service provider. The company still has about 2,000 shareholders who originally invested in Firecrest. That company was expelled from AIM in 1996 after profit warnings and a failed rights issue amid talk of investigations by the Department of Trade and Stock Exchange. Firecrest was eventually bought by a US shell company, Super Phone, in a deal worth around £16million. Shareholders were offered one Super Phone share for every two Firecrest shares they owned. The company was renamed Megacomm before it took over X-Stream in February 1998, changing its name yet again and launching its Internet service later the same year. Now those patient shareholders may find they are holding paper worth something. © Express Newspapers Ltd >>