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Archive for the ‘boic’ Category

CafePress files for IPO, looks to raise up to $80M

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, IPO news, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOm.

“The tech industry’s initial public offering waveis showing no signs of slowing.

CafePress filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is looking to raise up to $80 million in an IPO to be underwritten by J.P. Morgan, Cowen and Company, and Jefferies, according to the filing.

CafePress was founded in 1999 and sells user-customized products such as clothing, accessories, posters, stickers, and housewares through its flagship website CafePress.com. The company also owns a portfolio of other sites, such as CanvasOnDemand, which turns photographs into canvas artwork, and Imagekind.com, which sells artwork from independent artists.

CafePress is profitable and apparently growing. According to the filing, the company made $2.7 million in net income on $128 million in revenues in 2010. In the first three months of 2011, CafePress made $32 million in revenues, about 45 percent more than the $22 million it made in the first quarter of 2010. Last year, the company posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization (EBITDA) of $14.5 million.

But while the company’s financials are certainly solid, one could argue they’re not exactly spectacular. CafePress’ average order size has hovered around $47 for the past three years. The company’s top-line annual revenues have see-sawed recently, from $120 million in 2008, down to $103 million in 2009, and back up to $128 million in 2010. In the filing, CafePress blamed the 2009 dip on “macro-economic conditions in our primary markets that reduced discretionary spending by our customers coupled with the absence of election year sales.”

CafePress is just the latest in a recent series of Internet companies making moves toward the public markets. In the past month, LinkedIn, Yandex and Fusion-io have gone public, Groupon filed an S-1, and Kayak and Pandora have issued optimistic S-1 updates. Whether the activity represents another tech bubble or just a healthy and growing economy, it’s certainly shaping up to be a very busy summer for Silicon Valley.”

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Steven R. Gerbsman, Principal of Gerbsman Partners – Speaker at iiBig, Investment and M&A Opportunities in Healthcare June 13-14, 2011

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Gerbsman Partners, Marketing, tagged , , , , on June 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Steven R. Gerbsman to speak at iiBig conference “Investment and M&A Opportunities in Healthcare” June 13-14, 2011 – The Wit Hotel – Chicago, IL

Conference Overview

iiBIG is proud to return to Chicago for our Mid-Year 2011 conference, “Investment and M&A Opportunities in HEALTHCARE” at The Wit Hotel; June 13-14, 2011.

Our series of conferences on healthcare investing are quickly becoming the industry standard, leading the way with the latest information from the leading investors, middle-market healthcare executives, deal-makers who gather to discuss getting deals done in this fast-growth sector.

In 2011, experts are predicting an increase in Middle-Market M&A deal flow in all sectors – however, HEALTHCARE will continue to lead all others. Strategic buyers who dominated the market during the downturn will be joined by more financial buyers, private equity investors and others.

Date: June 13-14, 20111

The Wit Hotel, Chicago, IL

For more information, click here.

About Gerbsman Partners

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 68 technology, life science and medical device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $795 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A Transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in San Francisco, Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, Europe and Israel.

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Successful “Date Certain M&A” of Medical Device company, its Assets and Intellectual Property

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Inetellectual Property, Life Science, Medical Device, tagged , on March 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Steven R. Gerbsman, Principal of Gerbsman Partners, Kenneth Hardesty and James Skelton, members of Gerbsman Partners Board of Intellectual Capital, announced today their success in maximizing stakeholder value for a venture capital backed, medical device company. The company was in the cardiac rhythm management (CRM) space.

Gerbsman Partners provided Crisis Management and Investment Banking leadership, facilitated the sale of the business unit’s assets and its associated Intellectual Property. Due to market conditions, the board of directors made the strategic decision to maximize the value of the business unit and Intellectual Property. Gerbsman Partners provided leadership to the company with:
Crisis Management and medical device domain expertise in developing the strategic action plans for maximizing value of the business unit, Intellectual Property and assets;

  • Proven domain expertise in maximizing the value of the business unit and Intellectual Property through a Gerbsman Partners targeted and proprietary “Date Certain M&A Process”;
  • The ability to “Manage the Process” among potential Acquirers, Lawyers, Creditors Management and Advisors;
  • The proven ability to “Drive” toward successful closure for all parties at interest.

About Gerbsman Partners
Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. Since 2001, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 68 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $795 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception in 1980, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.3 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.
Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in San Francisco, Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, Europe and Israel.

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AT&T deal with T-Mobile – pros and cons

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Investments, Market research, Strategy, Technology, Wireless, tagged , , , , on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from SFGate.

“AT&T Inc.’s $39 billion deal for T-Mobile USA could improve the company’s cell service in San Francisco, but it may also mean the end to low-cost phone and data plans.

Acquiring T-Mobile’s infrastructure will increase the number of AT&T cell towers in San Francisco by 30 percent, according to spokesman John Britton.

That’s a significant increase to a network known for its dropped calls.

“We’ve got the same network, so they’re very compatible,” Britton said. “They can easily come together and be integrated. It’s going to be good news for customers.”

Both companies’ networks use a technology known as GSM. AT&T said customers of T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom, would be able to continue using their existing handsets if the merger is approved.

The company would not say how many cell towers it now has, or how many T-Mobile has in the Bay Area. But it said the acquisition would be crucial in helping it meet the exploding consumer demand for wireless spectrum.

In the past four years, AT&T’s mobile data traffic grew 8,000 percent, the company said. By 2015, it is expected to increase by up to 10 times more.

But AT&T’s expanded network will come at a cost to consumers, advocacy groups warned. T-Mobile’s disappearance from the marketplace would mean that three companies – AT&T, Verizon and Sprint – would own roughly three-quarters of the U.S. mobile market.

And the low-cost plans for which T-Mobile is known will probably disappear if the merger is completed, advocates said.

“This transaction would create a vastly more concentrated market,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, policy director at Media Access Project. “What that translates to is higher prices, less consumer choice and less innovation.”

The proposed acquisition, which would bring AT&T’s U.S. subscriber base to 130 million, is likely to take a year to complete. In a conference call with investors Monday, AT&T executives said they expected the deal would win approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice.

U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee, called for oversight hearings on the proposal.

“Competition is essential to promoting a vibrant wireless market, where consumers have a choice in the innovative services and devices available to them,” Eshoo said in a statement.

Customers will not notice any changes in their service until after the merger is completed, AT&T said.

A combined AT&T and T-Mobile would also make the next-generation communication standard, known as LTE, available to 95 percent of American households, or 46.5 million more than were eligible to receive it otherwise, the company said.”

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The individual entrepreneur – social shopping to take off.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Community, Economy, FaceBook, Gerbsman Partners, internet, Investments, IPO news, Market research, mobile 2.0, Social Networks, Strategy, Technology, Web 2.0, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

As a technology scout, I often look for new behaviors of consumers in order to predict technology evolutions. After some time looking into the GroupOn trend, I have started to form a mental understanding of sorts. The stakes are high and the social shopping trend presents a new prosperous businessmodel and most large online companies are making the move to harness the trend. Let me explain the separate parts that forms my picture and what it all means.

1. eBay – the online fleamarket.

Looking at what today is widely accepted as a stunning success and moneymachine – eBay took the private entrepreneur online. Craigslist and similar services continue to provide broad audiences for the private seller. The shift from paper to online generated a larger audience and more interest for the second-hand market.

2. Facebook – networking our life.

Through the introduction of online social networks like Friendster, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter and Facebook, personal networks got joined together online. The effects of “Faceboking” you social life is a transparency that newer been visible before. New “check in” services from GPS enabled mobile devices further expose our location and automatically connects us with unknown people on the same location.

3. iPhone – making applications smarter.

As mentioned above, “check in” services like “Places” on Facebook, Loopt, Gowalla and Brightkite brought the social context to the mobile device though their “check in” features. Together with Twitter and Facebook mobile, the social and contextual dialogue is more and more becoming a way of using the technology.

The New, New Market!

So, based on these three separate innovations,a new market is emerging – Social Shopping. Sure, not all new in its core – Amazon have for long had recommendation and 3:rd party providers of used products. But, if I look closer on the trend, and take into consideration the companies that have announced that they are testing similar products – it will be a fierce battle ahead.

GroupOn is the one stealing all the headlines right now, IPO rumors are spreading and the race is on for becoming the leader of the pack. Nr. 2 on the market – Living Social are playing catch up. Recently I was invited to sign-up for Facebook Deals, a service originally launched last year and currently going through updates similar to GroupOn and Living Social. Goggle is testing its Google Offers. Microsoft is using it´s Bing to for similar services.

What does it mean?

What does all this mean you might think. I fell it’s a contextual shopping trend that moves the web 2.0 into a truly social value experience. If you are shopping for something and have the mobile device, you will be able to utilize your location and seek out good deals close to where you are, when you want it. The technology evolution exemplified by iPhone and Android phones with location awareness embedded is the technology enabler. Facebook networks are the social context and audience for spreading the word and eBay entrepreneurs can chase deals and post them on the social shopping sites to generate a self-serving ecosystem that becomes a machine in it self.

One might think that this technology trend, contrary to social networks of relationships (which are personal and limited) like Facebook, have enough room for more than one or two major services. As the trend relies on action rather than relation, its a active usage and active user who drives the equation – on Facebook, it’s all a matter of who you know.

Implications

The biggest question for me is if Facebook will succeed in incorporating their Facebook Deals service into the private social networks as a natural extension of smaller, often local groups of a few hundred people, as seem to be the norm of the personal networks on Facebook. If they succeed, they will steal the market from the pioneers like GroupOn and Social Living and further solidify their position as the premier social destination on the net, if not Facebooks value will decline as a result and focus might shift. Google, Amazon and Microsoft will steal their fair share of the market place, as they own large audiences and often “host” a mature audience searching for little less cool and less hip offerings – with high trust and reliability.

The race is on!

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