Italy VC & IPO Newsletter

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ITALY V.C. & I.P.O.NEWSLETTER, OCT. 23, 2000

Limited edition due to higher priority work on our web site
Launch date for our 2-G web site: OCT. 25, 2000
Enjoy a glass of e-bubbles with us!

Italian Finance News Digest
VC deals - IPOs - Internet - TLC -  UMTS
Weekly closing prices on Nuovo Mercato
Venture Capital & IPO companies Profiles
Internet JOBS - VC & Finance Conferences

ITALIAN ECONOMY & FINANCE NEWS DIGEST

NUOVO MERCATO INDEX : FRIDAY CLOSING, Oct.20: STRONG REBOUNCE  
+6.4%,  on average
(all closing prices in FULL VERSION)

IPO OF THE WEEK
BB BIOTECH:  IPOed with an IPO price of  Euro 1185 and quickly climbed 11%

VETERANS
All veterans re-bounced from last week's slaughter and the market 
index recorded a nice + 6.4% gain

FREEDOMLAND, after a 4 day suspension from trade pending further 
enquiry into the company accounting practices and allegations of 
fraud, was re-admitted after announcement that Chairman of the Board 
will be ex-Milano Exchange President Piero Gnudi.


TELECOMMUNICATIONS

UMTS (3G mobile telephony)
As we anticipated last week, the UMTS auction is proving to be a big 
headache for government which was expecting as much as  Euro 25 
billion from it . It looks like it will have to cut its appetite in 
half since the auction was suspended on request of BLU, the weakest 
of the 6 bidders. If BLU calls it quits, the game is over, since 
there will be only 5 bidders left for 5 licenses.  BLU is likely to 
pull out due to shareholder squabbles between BRITISH TELECOM and the 
BENETTON family . The latter has been pushing BT to increase its 
stake in the consortium without success.  BENETTON is not willing to 
bleed to death on UMTS and hence BLUE appears in serious difficulties.

All  this was a known fact much before the auction was launched by 
the government. The decision to start the auction with 6 bidders for 
5 licenses,  knowing that at least one of the six was very likely to 
pull out after only a modest increase over the base price, looks like 
a blunder Italian style, if not worse.  If the auction is not 
declared invalid, we predict that it will become the subject of fraud 
investigation,  besides being at the center of political controversy 
for months to come.

The only decent and intelligent thing the government can do is scrap 
it and start-over again. 


VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS
(0122) SCF (Fresh Toasted Coffee Franchise - ITA - 2°)
(0121) EPI (Smart Cards & Casino & gaming Industry - USA - Seed)
(0120) HFH (Russian Technology Incubator & Search Engine - ITA - 2° Round)
(0118) AIM (Internet ASP,  B2B Software-Russia & USA - 2° Round)
(0117) EIA (Internet Portal, Arts & Entertainment - USA - 2° Round)
(0116) DHP (TV, Animation,  Multimedia - U.S.A.- Start-up funding)

INTERNET JOBS
Hot jobs in Italy: Leading Intranet Company seeks 5 Developers - Milan
For  more info send an email to  hclub@help-finance.com

CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIUMS
(15% discount to help-finance.com subscribers)

StartVenture - Investing in Russian Technology and Internet - 
November 30 - Holiday Inn Moscow

VENTURE CAPITAL COMPANIES
Send us your Press Releases - Need additional info? Just ask! - Visit 
DealFlowExpo
ENTREPRENEURS
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CONSULTANTS
Consulting Opportunities - Visit our site & register at http://help-finance.com
JOB SEEKERS/EMPLOYERS
Check-out our e-Job section at: http://www.help-finance.com
GURUs
Internet,ICT,TLC, Biotech- SEND  CV via Email - write GURU in the Subject