ist udate nicht noch viel interessanter...? - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[sharkman]

ich verstehe das interesse für matchnet nicht, ist nicht udate viel interessanter?

Udate rechnet für das laufende Geschäftsjahr 2002 mit einem Umsatz in Höhe von $ 44,6 Mio. bei einem EBITDA in Höhe von rund $ 16 Mio. und einem Jahresüberschuss in Höhe von $ 11,3 Mio. Für das Geschäftsjahr 2003 wird ein Umsatz von $ 71,5 Mio. und ein Jahresüberschuss in Höhe von $ 22,7 Mio. prognostiziert.

Zwar verstehe ich grundsätzlich das Interesse an Matchnet, da die professionelle Partnervermittlung über das Internet zu den spannendsten Internet-Stories, die die Börse zur Zeit zu bieten hat, gehört. Aber bezüglich Wachstum und Profitabilität glaube ich mehr an udate. wer weiß mehr?

[Stoneeagle]

By: sethpoppel
03 May 2002, 02:25 AM EDT Msg. 359 of 359

Conference Call DISAPPOINTING-UDATE in "show me" status..which means dead money for stock!!

All of this is MY OPINION.... BASED ON MY READING OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE DOCUMENTS AND MY INTERPRETATION OF THEM AS WELL AS THE RECENT CONFERENCE CALL.

1.) Lots of "excuses" for weak Q1 (relative to guidance given last fall) and even weaker Q2 expected performance. Things like abuse of 5 day trial membership, external parties attempting to mine for data with robots, people attempting to circumvent payment by posting e-mail addresses, and finally a lot of statistics about different purchase/conversion rates for GenX vs. GenY type registrants and that their mix was unfavorable. Thus IN MY OPINION, why should the "hockey-stick" guidance given in the current call be given any credibility. Clearly they have lost a lot of credibility (no matter what the "excuses" and thus until they meet the "hockey-stick" part of their guidance, the stock will probably not do much.

2.) Mel has promised a "special sauce" technology which will revolutionize their conversion rates (and be so good that external parties may even wish to buy it as their engine??) This is supposed to be rolled out around September (although there was some contradiction between CFO and COO as to whether this would impact Q2 or Q3?)..but creates the optimistic guidance for Q3 and especially Q4. Those of us schooled in "Missouri" stock analysis (and NOT paid or otherwise compensated for our analysis!) say "SHOW ME."

3.) The guidance now says revenues for 2002 four quarters are: 9.1, 9.5 (always seems the next quarter is not terribly ambitious...), 11 and then wahoo....15 million in Q4 (SHOW ME)...especially in light of the clearly absurd guidance they gave last fall which is now being missed by a mile, one quarter after it was given. The EBITDA numbers that go along with the four quarters are 3 (current) , 3.33, 4 and 5.6....yielding totals for the year of about 45mm in revenue and
16mm in EBITDA (9.6 of which is in the second half.) Thus, given the current Q run rate of $3 and accepting their accounting that $1 million they took as a "one-off" set of expenses was truly "one-off" (how many "one-offs" do you get....one each year??...had one-off last year too??) that equates to a current annual EBITDA run-rate of $12 mm which they hope to get up to $16 for the full year. With 25,000,000 shares outstanding and potentially another 5.5 million on options for $2/share or under...so effectively 30,000,000 shares ...If you give them a 6 multiple of their $12mm Ebitda run-rate that is $72mm (and with basically no real balance sheet adjustments) that would be around
$2.40/share..(one could almost say the market is efficient); If they get their $16mm for the year then at a 6 multiple of EBITDA they move to $3.20...but first they have to show they can do the $16mm

4.) Other pieces of the conference call (which you should listen to if you have invested or contemplate investing your hard-earned money)
a.) Their cost of achieving a new registrant increased 32% in Q1. This demonstrates the enormous competitive pressures and the one key disadvantage of not being a portal and thus having to negotiate traffic-generating
partnerships. This 32% increase occurred in a media market and net banner market where there was continued pressure on valuations...so it could even be that they had to increase their exposures more than 32%/registrant.
Just saw a Fortune piece on Classmates which indicated that one of the keys to their success was the collapse of the
cost of exposing themselves using banners etc...but clearly UDAT does not seem to be achieving a lower cost/registrant in that environment due to Yahoo, Match, Matchmaker, etc. etc. and there will be a new 800 lb. gorilla coming at them shortly!!
b.) Mel used an Ebay analogy to talk about commodity products being able to compete only on price. He then
indicated that one key to the future would be to differentiate UDAT so it would not be as price competitive...yet in the next breath he responded to a concern about competition by saying that many registrants would likely go to more than one service to find someone in the future because they wanted to get broader coverage. What is interesting is that the services that seem to have truly differentiated themselves are ones like JDate etc. which target very niche population groups; however this was not really discussed.
c.) An airball was lobbed at Mel for the first question from a Taglich Brothers rep...which just allowed him to reiterate the "message" he was trying to put forward.
d.) Mel sort of deflected the Nasdaq issue and really gave an answer that was somewhat curious. The two points I came away with (and you should listen to verify my interpretation) were 1.) That Mel feels the stock is not correctly value as a function of an INefficient market due to not being on Nasdaq (and the "supply/demand" factors for the stock; yet 2.) can`t get on Nasdaq due to that INefficient pricing (kind of a Catch 22??) and then began to talk about perhaps doing a financing to gain institutional support etc.?? If they don`t need more money (and it would appear their operational cash flow should support their growth; and if it doesn`t then it will be clear that profits are falling, not rising as the costs of obtaining revenues will be going through the sky)...then it is absurd to do a financing and further dilute shareholders at a price and time where Mel feels the stock is undervalued. The REAL way to solve the problem is to give guidance and then MEET it...so go get your $15 million of Q4 revenue and your $5.6million of Ebitda and hit your 2002 total targets and your stock price will take care of itself.

IT IS MY OPINION that Udate is at a critical juncture. They have hit a wall in terms of growth of revenue (5% revenue growth for current quarter!!) and perhaps profits due to enormous competition and the pressure which that places not only on revenue, but also on costs of obtaining that revenue. They have also hit an enormous wall in terms of credibility. Management`s very aggressive hockey-sticks presented last fall have been crushed already and so the stock will have a difficult time achieving any momenturm until and unless they come up with their "organic" growth to $15mm in revenue in Q4 and $5.6mm in EBITDA (of course they could always cloud that picture through acquisitons and one-off charges etc.??) Also, their "heritage" of having been reverse-merged into a "shell" and then having the Taglich Brothers as their supporters doesn`t help that credibility IN MY OPINION. Further pressuring it is their complete "offshore" existence and bulletin-board status which could raise corporate governance concerns in the minds of potential investors. The only answer is to stop talking and to meet the guidance and targets they have
laid out through successful execution which will validate their contention that they understand their market better than the competition. If they do that, everyone will be happy and the stock will take off near the end of the year when they can declare that Q4 is "on track" for $15mm in revenue and $5.6mm in Ebitda; till then the $2.50 stock price may be "fair value."

[everl]

danke Stoneeagle, exzellenter Beitrag

jetzt wissen wir, warum bei u Date nicht mehr viel zu erwarten ist - aber warum geht auch bei MN der Kurs nicht höher ?

everl

[Lockeres Luder]

Sehr interessante Zusammenfassung, die mich dazu bewegt noch ein Paar billige Stücke zu kaufen. Jetzt sollten wir aber auch in den nächsten Tagen über die 3 Springen.

In Deutschland muß man streng limitiert kaufen, sonst zockt der Makler Dich richtig ab.

Wo kauft Du Deine everl?

[FuerstBismarck]

ich bin ehrlich gesagt froh darüber, dass das uDate-Management eine derart "konservative" Prognose abgegeben hat.

Und, um hier mal ganz klar Position zu beziehen, welches Unternehmen besitzt derzeit den Mut, nicht nur über positive Errungenschafen zu palavern, sondern auch offen über Schwierigkeiten zu berichten und gleichzeitig konstruktive Lösungen vorzustellen?

Sethhoppel rechnet darüber hinaus mit einem EBITDA-Muliplikator von 6. Meint Ihr wirklich, das dass der richtige Wertansatz für ein derartig stark wachsendes Unternehmen ist? Oder ist das eher auf die aktuelle Marktsituation und die Tatsache zurückzuführen, dass uDate noch!!! weitgehend unbekannt ist?

Vielleicht solltet Ihr diese Aspekte mal aus einer neutralen Sichtweise überdenken!

Ich jedenfalls bin fest davon überzeugt, ein Investment gefunden zu haben, dass Aussicht auf eine sehr ansehnliche Rendite hat.

Gruß

FB

[Lockeres Luder]

Rechnest Du wirklich in absehbarer Zeit mit einer Rendite? Das wäre der Hammer, die erste Internetfirma die ´ne Dividende abwirft, könnte glatt eine value Aktie werden!!

Oder meinst doch eher Kurs Performance?

[Stoneeagle]

udate ist interessant, aber matchnet ist halt noch vieeeel spannender. Allein die viel geringere Market Cap, die nicht vorhandene Verschuldung, das defintiv bessere Management, die bessere Strategie, die erfolgreichere Akquisition von Drittportalen, Übernahmephantasie, Nasdaq-Listing...dagegen ist udate von den amis schon völlig ausgelutscht...