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$1SINGAPORE 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 LumpurSingapore 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.htmWhat happened to 'SEASAMI' ?
Did it end up in Ali Baba's Cave, which will only open with 'Open SESAMI' and not 'SEASAMI' ?