Lastminute.com "Trading buy" ++++++++++ - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[jli]

Lastminute.com: Trading Buy (Goldman Sachs)


Die Analysten von Goldman Sachs halten die Befürchtungen der Investoren hinsichtlich der finanziellen Zukunft von Lastminute.com für übertrieben und stufen den Titel daher von "Market Outperformer" auf "Trading Buy" hoch.

Es werde damit gerechnet, dass der Online-Flugreisenanbieter im Laufe der nächsten Quartale den operativen Break-Even erreichen könne. In den Kernmärkten England und Frankreich solle dies schon im nächsten Quartal geschehen. Dieses Ziel habe lastminute.com seit nunmehr drei Quartalen aufrecht erhalten.

Für das vierte Quartal 2002 rechnen auch die Analysten mit einem positiven Cash-Flow auf Konzernebene. Angesichts der aktuellen Barbestände sei der finanzielle Fortbestand bis zu diesem Punkt ausreichend gesichert. In Anbetracht der wachsenden Zuversicht in die Geschäftsidee und die nahende Profitabilität, sowie der ohnehin niedrigen Bewertung, sei der Titel als "Trading Buy" einzustufen.
Analyst: Goldman Sachs
WKN der Aktie: 936071
KGV 03e: k.A.
Besprechungskurs: k.A.
Kursziel: k.A.
Rating des Analysten: Trading Buy

[AnitaD]

wo wird "Deine" Aktie denn gehandelt???

Börse Symbol Währ. Vortag akt.Kurs Diff. % Handelsvol. Gehand. St. Kurszeit
Frankfurt LMT EUR 0,750 0,750 + 0,000 + 0,00 0 0 26. Feb 09:16
Berlin LMT EUR 0,800 0,750 - 0,050 - 6,25 0 0 26. Feb 09:30
Düsseldorf LMT EUR 0,750 0,750 + 0,000 + 0,00 0 0 26. Feb 09:17
München LMT EUR 0,760 0,760 + 0,000 + 0,00 0 0 26. Feb 09:31
Stuttgart LMT EUR 0,750 0,750 + 0,000 + 0,00 0 0 26. Feb 10:36
Xetra LMT EUR 0,400 0,400 + 0,000 + 0,00 0 0 06. Feb 13:39

in Deutschland wohl nich so doll gefragt - nicht 1 Aktie wurde bisher heute gehandelt...

Tolle Nummer!

[jli]

@ AnitaD

Leider sind die Umsätze in Deutschland wirklich schwach. Dafür
bekommst Du sie aber relativ günstig. Auf jeden Fall kannst Du
lastminute ja in Deine Watchlist aufnehmen. So kann man praktisch in
2 Jahren nachvolziehen welche Aktien eine überdurchschnittliche
Performance erzielt haben.

Gruß jli

[jli]

lastminute.com plc announces the £9.0 million all share purchase of
Travelselect.com Limited



lastminute.com plc, the online provider of travel and leisure
solutions, today announces the purchase of a leading UK flights
provider to consumers and travel agents, Travelselect.com Limited,
for £9.0 million which will be satisfied by the issue (subject to
listing) of 14,538,011 new shares in lastminute.com plc.

Highlights of the transaction:

- immediately earnings enhancing;

- immediate positive contribution to operating cashflow;

- further complements the delivery of operating profit in the UK
business. lastminute.com has already announced that it is on track to
deliver operating profit in its UK and French businesses in the April
to June 2002 quarter;

- creates cost synergies and additional gross profit. For the year
to 31 January 2002 Travelselect.com generated £3.3 million of gross
margin;

- triples lastminute.com`s existing UK flights volume creating a UK
flights revenue stream of approximately £50 million;

- facilitates access to a further 39 key airline relationships
whilst deepening the relationships with existing suppliers;

- transforms the current flight product to a similar breadth and
scale as the existing lastminute.com hotel portfolio, enhancing a key
component of the new dynamic packaging service to be launched during
the second half of 2002;

- provides online access to the Eurostar product.

Travelselect.com has over 19 years experience providing great value
flight opportunities to both its business and consumer customer base
and sells approximately 200,000 flight tickets annually. Sales are
generated both on and off-line with a significant shift towards
on-line sales during the past twelve months. Internet bookings
generated exclusively on-line now account for some 80% of total
transactions. Travelselect.com has negotiated fares with some 85
major airlines around the world including British Airways, Virgin
Atlantic, Lufthansa, KLM and Air France.

Travelselect.com is now profitable and has grown sales by over 40%
per annum for the past 3 years. The latest unaudited management
accounts for Travelselect.com Limited, for the year to 31 January
2002, show turnover of £38.2 million, gross profit of £3.3 million
and a loss before tax and goodwill amortisation of £3.1 million. Net
assets at that date amounted to £0.8 million including net cash of
£2.7 million, but after excluding £8.7 million of intangible assets.
Travelselect.com`s current UK operation comprises 87 full time
employees based in London.

Vimal Khosla, majority shareholder and Chief Executive of
Travelselect.com Limited, will join the lastminute.com plc Board as
an Executive Director with effect from today.

In addition to the initial consideration, lastminute.com will pay
further consideration depending on the EBITDA achieved for the year
to 31 January 2003. The additional consideration has been capped to a
maximum payment of £3 million and may be satisfied either in new
shares or in loan notes, at the option of lastminute.com plc.

Of the 14,538,011 new shares in lastminute.com plc to be issued as
initial consideration, 89% are subject to lock-up provisions for 12
months from completion (subject to certain limited exceptions).

Application has been made to the UK Listing Authority and to the
London Stock Exchange for the shares to be admitted to the Official
List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange`s market for listed
securities. It is expected that admission to the Official List and
trading on the London Stock Exchange`s market for listed securities
will become effective at 8am on 8 April 2002 and dealings will
commence at that time.

Allan Leighton, Chairman of lastminute.com said:

"This is lastminute.com`s first acquisition of scale in the UK. The
travel volume and expertise Travelselect.com brings will further
enhance the delivery of our key metrics as we continue to lead the
business beyond operating profit at a country level."

Brent Hoberman, Chief Executive of lastminute.com said:

"lastminute.com and Travelselect.com are highly complementary.
Travelselect.com adds substantially to the range and scale of
lastminute.com`s flights business, and this will be particularly
important when we introduce dynamic packaging later this year,
enabling customers to create their own flight and hotel packages."

Vimal Khosla, Chief Executive of Travelselect.com Limited said:

"We are delighted to become part of such an exciting and progressive
business. The joining of lastminute.com offers great opportunity to
grow the flights area of the combined businesses dramatically. There
is significant potential to enhance the product range to our travel
agent customers through the Globepost brand."


Enquiries:
Brent Hoberman
Chief Executive
lastminute.com plc [phone]

David Howell
Chief Financial Officer
lastminute.com plc [phone]

Julian Walker
Citigate Dewe Rogerson [phone]


Notes to editors

ABOUT LASTMINUTE.COM

Based on the idea of matching supply and demand, lastminute.com
offers consumers last minute opportunities to acquire airline
tickets, hotel rooms, package holidays, entertainment tickets,
restaurant reservations and delivery, speciality services, gifts and
auctions in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, The
Netherlands, Australia and South Africa.

In October 2000, lastminute.com acquired the Degriftour Group, one of
France`s leading e-travel groups. At 31 December 2001,
lastminute.com had over 4.6 million subscribers to its weekly
newsletter and had established approximately 10,100 supplier
relationships, with companies such as Lufthansa, Air France,
Alitalia, bmi british midland, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic
Airways, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Kempinski Hotels, Sol
Meliá, Six Continents, JMC, Disneyland Paris, English National
Ballet, The Royal Albert Hall, Conran Restaurants and The Way Ahead
Box Office.

lastminute.com is the most visited website in the travel and tourism
category across Europe according to a survey published in December
2001 by independent research company NetValue.



ABOUT TRAVELSELECT.COM LIMITED

Travelselect.com has grown out of GP, an established airline
consolidator with over 19 years industry experience.
Travelselect.com was the first transactional website in the UK to
successfully merge negotiated and published fares and has since grown
sales by over 40% per annum. It has now become the 6th most visited
travel web site in the UK in January 2002 according to NetValue.

Travelselect.com developed technology for the travel industry
in-house for over 10 years. This has enabled it to offer
technological solutions to its travel agent base as well as providing
key licensing opportunities within the UK and overseas.

Travelselect.com has always benefited from close co-operation with
its travel industry partners and has established relationships with
over 85 airlines, Eurostar, and hotel providers.

[jli]

=DJ THE SKEPTIC:Lastminute Buy Won`t Make Online Life Easier


By Brian Truscott
A DOW JONES NEWSWIRES COLUMN

LONDON (Dow Jones)--It`s good to see lastminute.com (LMIN) beefing up the number of getaway deals on offer by acquiring Travelselect.com
Cheap flights and hotels will always attract more paying customers than selling weekend pottery courses in the Lake District or offering the chance to adopt a chimpanzee.
The deal caused a small ripple of enthusiasm in the market, and investors pushed the shares as much as 6.3% higher to 63.75 pence in early trade Monday, closer to a 52-week high of 75 pence.
But it`s difficult to get excited about the prospects of this dotcom survivor, given the growing number of commoditized online travel sites, such as MyTravel.com and ebookers.com. And then there are sites such as opodo.com, a website launched by nine of the bigger airlines that replicates the lastminute model but uses information that comes directly from the service providers.
And why traipse through the lastminute archive when you can surf directly to Ryanair.com or easyjet.com for precisely what you want - say, a flight to Stockholm and all for just GBP9?
Sure, online travel sales are expected to grow exponentially over the next decade, but the struggle to win a discernible piece of this pie will be tough. True, lastminute is expected to venture into the black sometime around the end of 2003, but it`s difficult to see how profits from this standalone operation will appreciably outstrip the cost of sales.
The company - which raised more than GBP110 million when it floated at the height of the dotcom frenzy in 2000 - burned through more than GBP5 billion last quarter and now sits on a dwindling cash pile.
Travelselect.com had been sitting on GBP2.7 million of cash by the end of 2001, a year when the U.K. company showed a pre-exceptional loss of GBP3.1 million. So the fillip to lastminute.com`s coffers won`t amount to much more than GBP1 million - in addition to supposed synergies and annual gross margins of GBP3.3 million.
Ultimately, this deal - a dilutive one, thanks to 15 million new shares in circulation - will only provide fuel to the speculative fire that lastminute could be taken over by a suitor that sees value in the brand name.
However, the success of upstarts opdodo.com and Airtour`s (U.ATR) MyTravel.com website makes a weak argument for buying lastminute as a late entry into the market. At the end of the day, someone might be convinced if it comes with a knockdown price - but they might equally decide that a lastminute deal elsewhere offers better value.
-By Brian Truscott, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9289; [e-mail]

(END) DOW JONES NEWS 04-08-02
07:47 AM

[jli]

Ich frage mich "Was macht eigentlich Herr siba?". Ist er mit seinen
knappen 100 % in Urlaub gefahren oder ein Opfer andersweitig sinkender
Kurse.

Gruß jli

[jli]

lastminute.com links up with Rivals




lastminute.com, online provider of travel and leisure solutions and
Rivals.net, the UK`s number one sports website, today announce a new
marketing partnership to promote both sites` widespread sporting
offerings. The partnership ties together lastminute.com`s sports
section and Rivals` complement of established sports sites.

lastminute.com links will be positioned on the navigation bar of all
Rivals.net web sites and promoted through creative marketing on the
Rivals Digital Media sites, Rivals.net, Football365.com, PlanetF1.com
and PlanetRugby.com.

Reciprocally, Rivals will receive links and branding on
lastminute.com`s sports homepage feeding back to the Rivals.net site
as well as links on sports categories pages.

In addition, Rivals.net and lastminute.com will run competitions on
Rivals.net`s web sites.

Carl Lyons, Head of UK Marketing for lastminute.com, said:
"lastminute.com has a terrific range of sports offers, and by working
with Rivals, the UK`s number one sports sites, we`ll be making them
available to more fans than ever before."

Chris Reed, Marketing Director for Rivals Digital Media, said: "We`re
delighted to be able to team up with lastminute.com for this joint
marketing campaign. Not only is lastminute.com one of the most
established brands in the online arena, but more importantly, it
offers a perfect fit for Rivals as its chosen sports hospitality
partner."

[jli]

lastminute.com, the online provider of travel and leisure solutions has formed a partnership with British Sky Broadcasting to sell its key products through the UK`s leading interactive television service, Sky Active.

Expected to launch this autumn, the deal will extend Sky Active`s line-up of retail and travel services, while providing a significant distribution platform for lastminute.com. A wide variety of lastminute.com products - from travel deals to theatre tickets and retail products - will be offered to viewers with up-to-the-minute availability and pricing.

Sky Active is available through digital satellite television in 5.5 million homes across the UK and more than seven million Sky digital viewers used interactive services in 2001. The new customers available through Sky Active will add to lastminute.com?s 2.1* million-strong UK newsletter subscribers.

The service will benefit from the faster and simpler navigation offered by Sky`s WML microbrowser technology, which allows viewers to use many interactive services without interrupting television viewing.

Jon Florsheim, managing director of Sky Interactive, said:
"BSkyB looks forward to welcoming one of Europe?s best known Internet brands to the UK`s leading interactive television service. lastminute.com`s high-quality range of travel and entertainment deals will be a valuable addition to the array of products on offer to Sky Active users."

lastminute.com group managing director Martha Lane Fox said:
?lastminute.com is always looking for innovative and cost-effective ways that new and existing customers can access its great deals ? what better way than enabling them to do so via the convenience of their television, a medium well suited to lastminute.com?s lifestyle products. Using Sky Active as a transaction platform further builds on lastminute.com?s multi channel, multi platform strategy and builds a strong partnership with BSkyB, the UK?s market leader in digital commerce.?

* As at 31 December 2001, lastminute.com had over 4.6 million global subscribers to its weekly newsletter

[jli]

lastminute.com announces world`s first voice automated hotel reservation system

Financial Press Releases | General Press Releases

<http://cws.huginonline.com/L/131840/IMG/logo.gif>

9 May 2002



lastminute.com, the online provider of travel and leisure solutions, today announced the launch of its European voice automated hotel reservation service. In what the company believes is the first application of its type in the world, lastminute.com has developed an innovative service that allows people on the move to book selected hotels listed on lastminute.com?s website by phone.

The service is designed for lastminute.com customers who need a room but are not near their PC. Whether away from the office, in the car, or on a train, they can now book hotels in destinations throughout the UK and Europe using advanced voice-recognition technology - for business or pleasure.

lastminute.com?s voice-automated hotel reservation service will initially offer a selection of the best offers at over 1,000 hotels in more than 100 UK cities and towns, and in the top 20 European cities including Rome, Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid. Callers simply speak their commands over the phone to the automated voice nicknamed ?Chad?, which responds conversationally, giving details of what is available.

Quick and easy to use, the service should be able to tell customers what is available in under 30 seconds, while complete booking will generally take under four minutes, including collecting credit card details and providing directions to the hotel. Customers will receive an automated confirmation via SMS or can have the full booking details spoken to them over the phone.

lastminute.com chief executive officer Brent Hoberman said: ?We believe voice recognition is a key component of our mission to serve the needs of customers at the last minute. We?re a digital commerce company and are able to leverage our strengths across all relevant consumer channels where we expect automated-voice to be of vital importance. This is the latest in a series of projects where we have demonstrated our sustained commitment to the development of innovative consumer retail channels and cost-effective business processes.?

?This is an important building block in our strategy to best meet the needs of our customers on the move. There are exciting opportunities emerging in voice-automated and multimodal commerce and, step by step, we are putting in place the components needed for success,? said lastminute.com director of voiceweb, Dominic Cameron. ?Voice-recognition and synthetic speech technologies are making rapid progress and allowing us to envisage entirely new ways of meeting our customers` needs.?

The Technology
The service uses VoiceXML, the emerging standard for voice-recognition applications throughout the world.

It is the first such consumer retail application to use both advanced speech recognition and ?text-to-speech? technologies. Customer phone calls are answered by a `voice interface platform? (developed and deployed by Broca Networks Ltd) where the caller?s speech is converted into text (using Nuance Communications software) which is then used to search for available inventory. The hotel offers are then spoken back to the customer by two voices. The first is a female broadcaster whose speech is concatenated to guide the caller, list hotels and give pricing information. The second uses rVoice speech synthesis technology (from Rhetorical Systems Ltd) with the `synthetic male voice` reading descriptive information about the hotels. Many different technology systems at lastminute.com are linked together to run the service, including back office and customer service systems, telephone and SMS messaging servers and website databases. The original design and on-going development of the service?s user interface is being assisted by a team at The University of Edinburgh?s Centre for Communication Interface Research.

Ronald Croen, President and CEO, Nuance Inc. said: "Amongst enterprises that are applying voice technologies to enhance their interactions with customers, lastminute.com leads in innovation, and smart, pragmatic thinking. We`re delighted to be working with lastminute.com in using our advanced speech technologies to enhance its business processes and to create new and profitable channels to consumers."

The lastminute.com voice automated service can be accessed by dialling
0870 872 6313.


For further information, please contact:

Susan Hayes
Tel: [phone]
Biss Lancaster Euro RSCG, on behalf of lastminute.com
email: [e-mail]