Push-me, pull-you change as eVentures can't give away cash

Cindy Mitchener

After a disappointing first year listed e-commerce investor eVentures said yesterday it was still looking for homes for its cash mountain.

The company early last year raised $60 million, half from local investors and companies and half from News Corp and Japanese giant Softbank.

To date it has made only two investments - in online financial services provider E-Loan and direct marketing company MessageMedia. It had planned to make six investments.

The E-Loan operation has since been scaled back and a majority position sold to The Warehouse.

Chief executive Cindy Mitchener said yesterday that evaluation of two logistics and supply chain management products, one export and one import-oriented, were in the due diligence phase. EVentures had not yet decided whether it would invest in them. The company had "the majority" of the $60 million it raised last year in cash.

Although the share price has more than halved from its 70c high soon after last May's sharemarket float, Ms Mitchener said that only reflected the fortunes of internet-based stocks in general. "In fact we're the second best-performing stock in our peer group," she said.

Late last year eVentures abandoned plans to invest in shopping site Buy.com and games site Contest2win.

Ms Mitchener said the strategy had changed from a "push" model in which News Corp and Softbank would use eVentures to launch into New Zealand products they were developing globally to a "pull" model in which eVentures would select products it judged suitable for the New Zealand market. Eventures' shareholders include Telecom, The Warehouse, and sharebroker JB Were, which each hold five million shares.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name:
Your email:	Not displayed to the public
Comment:
Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved.

Anti-spam verification:

Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Printable version

Related News

WSI first-half profit sinks 41%
Auckland Airport flags higher passenger numbers
Electricity industry stalwart, Barrie Leay, dies suddenly
NZ card spending creeps up 3.5 percent in January
NZ Treasury flags heightened risk from European debt crisis
NZ Dollar Outlook: Kiwi to trade at elevated levels
BNZ keeps interest margins "broadly stable"
Kirkcaldie buyer yet to make firm offer
NZ s resource management system "encourages delay"
NZ 4Q wage inflation speeds up in private sector