[Let me get this right. Verisign spent $21 billion in 2000, according to the article below, to buy Network Solutions. As of today, the market capitalization of the combined Verisign-NetSoln entity is just $2.4 billion. (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=vrsn&d=t) --Declan]
--- http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7BE4BC212D%2DF427%2D48E3%2DB745%2D5425396A65FF%7D VeriSign's stock price slashed Lowers outlook after Q1 revenue miss; more staff cut By Bambi Francisco, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 1:19 PM ET April 26, 2002 MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- VeriSign, a company challenged to offset the decline in its domain-name registration business, saw its shares cut nearly in half Friday as investors punished the Internet security firm for its first-quarter results and lowered outlook. VeriSign shares plunged $8.13, or nearly 45 percent, to $10.11 as the most actively traded issue on Nasdaq. It's a mind-boggling level as the stock nears its split-adjusted 1998 IPO price of $3.50 and stands at a fraction of its all-time high -- $246 -- set back in the spring of 2000. Late Thursday, VeriSign (VRSN: news, chart, profile) posted first-quarter earnings that matched expectations but with sales that fell short of the consensus projection by 4 percent. "Weakness was largely driven by an unanticipated significant decline in (domain-name) renewal rates," wrote Todd Weller, an analyst at Legg Mason. Renewal rates came in at 40 percent, short of Weller's projection of 55 percent. VeriSign's shares are down nearly 80 percent for the year, largely due to the weakness in its domain-name business. They're also down substantially from the $200 stock price sported when VeriSign said it would spend $21 billion to buy Internet domain name registrar Network Solutions in March 2000. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sign this pro-therapeutic cloning petition: http://www.franklinsociety.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------
