Amidst the hype of 1999, SingTel poured US$50Million in an over
rated partnership with Lycos Asia to provide internet
service.
Five years later, the US$50Million is DUMPED for a token sum of
US$1.00
Brilliant Corporate Governance at work, at least less spectacular
than the US$450Million loss with MICROPOLIS.
SingTel dumps
Lycos Asia stake for US$1
SINGAPORE Telecommunications, South-east Asia's largest phone
company, has sold its 50 per cent stake in the Internet portal
Lycos Asia - a venture once valued at
US$50 million - for US$1, the company said on
Wednesday.
SingTel's partner, Barcelona-based Terra Lycos, now owns the entire
venture, whose book value sank to nothing by the end of last year,
SingTel said in a statement.
The joint venture was valued at US$50 million at the height of the
dotcom boom, but has floundered since the Internet bubble
burst.
SingTel decided to sell its stake after analysing the portal's
future business potential, the statement said.
The partners formed Lycos Asia in Sept 1999 to deliver news and
local content to Asian markets with 11 Web sites in China, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, India and South-east Asia.
Lycos Asia slashed 30 jobs last July, leaving only a skeleton
staff.
The portal signed a high-profile deal with Manchester United in May
2002 to set up a Chinese-language club Web site aimed at selling
merchandise to an estimated 6 million to 10 million fans in China.
-- AP
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/latest/story/0,4390,239382,00.html?
Companies News / Asia-Pacific
Turn the clock back to
Wednesday September 15 1999, and read about the
euphoric hype.
SINGTEL/LYCOS: Asian net access to
rise
By Jonathan Birchall in Kuala
Lumpur
Singapore Telecom has formed a $50m
joint venture with Lycos, the US-based internet portal
operator, to provide localised versions of the Lycos.com and Tripod
internet access sites in Asia.
The joint venture, Lycos Asia, expects to make country-specific
access sites available later this year for China, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and India.
SingTel will administer the sites, including handling local
product aggregation, and sales and marketing, while Lycos will
provide its search, navigation and internet community technologies
to the 50-50 venture.
Future expansion is planned into the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia
and Thailand.
The deal follows moves by Cable & Wireless HKT, one of
SingTel's main regional competitors, to establish links with both
Microsoft and Cisco, aimed at developing higher-value, broadband
internet services.
Michael Millar, telecoms analyst at SG Research in Singapore, said
in addition to the prospects of future revenues from advertising
and e-commerce, the joint venture should provide additional traffic
for SingTel's Internet Exchange.
The exchange currently provides broadband, lower-cost links between
more than 40 internet service providers in the region to the main
US-based internet backbone.
Bob Davies, Lycos president, said that the company's move
"dramatically strengthens its position in the global portal
race".
Lycos's rival Yahoo! has also formed a partnership with Hong Kong's
SmartOne telecoms to produce a localised internet access site.
Yahoo! already offers eight of its own localised Asian sites.
SingTel said it was seeking to emerge as a dominant
regional internet and e-commerce operator.
This month, SingTel's subsidiary National Computer Systems
announced the set up of a portal aimed at commercial users, called
SEASAMi.com, as part of its efforts to develop higher-value
internet services. It also owns Singapore Post, which Lycos said
could complement the development of on-line commerce.
The new venture was announced a day after Singapore's
Telecommunications Authority announced it was to remove
restrictions on foreign ownership of both internet access providers
and internet exchange providers, a move that can be expected to
erode SingTel's dominance of the island's internet access
market.
http://www.gwu.edu/~gms/globalread/syngtelycosjv.htm
What happened to 'SEASAMI' ?
Did it end up in Ali Baba's Cave, which will only open with 'Open
SESAMI' and not 'SEASAMI' ?
