Some good news at last from this weeks Shares mag. Tim Freeborn revisits the company and altho no firm details are given about new deals he says they will be announced this quarter. I would think that this could be at the same time as the interim results are announced. I for one will be holding on cos they will fly sooner rather than later! ( 8.30% up today!)

tim,
was the overall reaction to the shareholders meeting favourable, or was there a general discontent over the presentations?
I've been holding these shares for a good while now with promises of imminent major contract wins and ramping up of vast spare capacity. Will the extra 5% ever be acheived in your opinion?

Thanks Tim for the info and participation. It's very re-assuring to know you're in the same boat as the rest of us!!!!!!!

Tim

Hopefully that means that you wont be changing your recommendation on the company as a result of what you learned at the meeting!!! I still feel that the fun will start soon as an awfull lot of contracts seem to be going live or are about to. Maybe we bought in a year too early!!

topped up this morning. its definately promising and there is little else to buy at the moment with the risk/reward epo gives

SS

Well done, (yours were the early 100000 buys i take it) as i said before definately worth topping up at these levels as they wont be here long. Im currently holding close to 4mil. Anyone else on this board share my faith with a mil+ holding??

I share your faith jdubb, just haven't got your kind of money!! :-)

B

Cheers mate and thx for representing this bb and the ADVFN one at the meeting. IM off to nxt year's one to see how my investment got to such a ridiculously high price (hopefully about 10-15p)!!!!! Now at that price i would be rich!!!

As someone has already said, the anticpated wait for gold has just got longer, so IMHO there will more sellers than buyers unless we see some good news coming from EPO.

People, (and I include me in this) bought into the (greed) short term story written in shares, but also talked up on this board and elsewhere.

There are some buyers who will use this weakness to top up their holdings but a) I don't believe the buyers will outstrip the sellers in the short term and b) those that are prepared to hold, (as I will), will have longer to wait, I.e it will become an investment holding rather than a trading holding.

In short I believe the price will remain weak for a while, (few months maybe. unless a penny stock newsletter puffs the story - now there's a thought!), but over that period I will probably add to my existing holding, (Ok, so not in the Millions of shares bracket, but a considerable stake for me)

looks like a lot of people werent impreesed by what the management had to say judging by todays drop .

The share price often seems to do this & then often recovers, usually with very light trading.

If it drops some more then I may buy some more but I think we may have to wait a while for this share to take off.

Agree with apple, this is definitely an 'invest' share. It may take a little while to get the ball rolling, but this time next year we may well be sitting on a goldmine. Although I feel bad saying it, helping the govt of the worlds most populous country tax its citizens has got to be looking good (for us).
p.s dont hold me to the goldmine quote, it may go into administration, but more than likely we are speculating to accumulate.

Buys today 721k vs sells of 307k so positive in spite of the fall

Earthport PLC
11 May 2004

11 May 2004
earthport plc

earthport will provide micro-payments solution to
Wanadoo in the UK

earthport plc, the electronic payment services company,(EPO.L) today announced
it has been selected by Wanadoo, the UK's No. 1 for the Internet, to enable
Wanadoo's customers to pay for digital content via the UK's first portal-wide '
stored value' micro-payments solution. A 'stored value' account acts like a
wallet, where funds are initially deposited by a customer. This makes it easier
for the customer to make small payments to a range of different content
providers.

earthport will handle all micro-payment transactions for digital content between
Wanadoo and its 2.6 million UK customers. The solution will provide Wanadoo and
its merchants with a cost effective alternative to Premium Rate SMS as a way to
charge for content. The solution is also designed to conform to FSA e-money
regulations, providing an alternative system, should there be regulation of
Premium Rate SMS services in the future.

Wanadoo in the UK will be introducing the new payment solution later this year
to capitalise on the huge growth opportunities in digital content, from sports
results, horoscopes to news, music, video, ring tones & games. The solution
will provide consumers with the ability to pay for digital content and services
across the portal, securely, and by entering personal & payment information only
once, creating a stored value account. Other benefits include a record of the
full details and history of purchases, spending controls, and the security of
purchasing from known and reputable merchants.

The solution will also enable up to 200 merchants to access the Wanadoo UK
consumer base, promote special offers, track transactions and capture further
marketing related data.

Justin Lunny, earthport plc Head of Business Development, commented:

'earthport is very excited to be working with Wanadoo on this important project.
Digital content is a huge and growing business across Europe, and ISPs and
content providers are looking to capitalise on this growth. earthport's
solution is the ideal platform for cross spend services, and this project is
further proof of increased demand for earthport's stored value product across
multiple markets.'


-ends-


For further information, please contact:

earthport plc Tel: +44 (0) 20 7907 1100
Rob Cunningham, CEO
Justin Lunny, Head of Business Development

Wanadoo UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7553 7566
Kate Hobbs, PR Executive Kate.hobbs@uk.wanadoo.com
Financial Dynamics (PR to Earthport) Tel: +44 (0) 207 831 3113
James Melville-Ross / Juliet Clarke


About earthport

earthport plc is a UK-based company specialising in the provision of secure
electronic payment systems. earthport's key product is its Universal Payment
Network, a payment infrastructure which links directly to traditional legacy
banking systems, connecting the banking and electronic worlds. The UPN allows
parties to transact internationally using cash or cards, securely and affordably
via any electronic enabled device. The UPN enables payment delivery in over 80
countries and in multiple currencies. UPN is bi-directional and caters for
micro to macro payments.

Based in the West End and City of London, with 60 employees, earthport plc was
admitted to the AIM (ticker: EPO) in 2001. Further information can be found at:
www.earthport.com

About Wanadoo

Wanadoo, a subsidiary of France Telecom, is one of Europe's leading Internet and
directories companies with, at March 31, 2004, more than 9.3 million Internet
Access customers and, at December 31, 2003, more than 641,000 advertisers in
Directories. Wanadoo is the leading Internet media services provider in France
and the U.K., and the ndegrees2 in Spain and in The Netherlands. Wanadoo had
more than 2.9 million ADSL and cable subscribers at March 31, 2004. It recorded
2.6 billion euros in revenues in 2003 and has approximately 6,700 employees.

Wanadoo is listed on Euronext Paris. Further information on Wanadoo can be found
on the company's web site at: www.wanadoocorporate.com

This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

I guess thats one of the five..................almost half way through the year.......still chance for it to be Earthports year :-))..........seems a good contract win.......but not easy to predict revenues from this yet........a blue day today......but still will be below my averaging of 3.2p.

AV

Mine too- but its a start. Yesterday EPO just got caught up in the general stock market fall so i thought it would bounce today anyway. Need more announcements to bring Epo to everyones notice again!!

they are buyers. they appear as sellers on money am as the stock was sold below the offer price

oneill - if you look at the CFP thread no 463, Ian (of Money AM) explains why buys can appear as sells, etc. - it is quite interesting.

ALL

A somewhat positive note from citywire; their verdict :


"The history of this company makes the shares look still pretty risky. On the other hand, if the software is really about to have its day this ought to be a penny share with far greater upside risk than downside.

Revenues and a fast track to profitability will be the proof of the pudding, but real risk lovers might want to take a gamble now."

Things are looking up!! Good old Frenchies- i take it all back!!

Yes, I agree - d'accord! Joanne Wallen of Citywire does write a fairly positive report on EPO and it was her input some months ago that made me buy in the first place. Should stress though that she does describe it as a "highly speculative punt"!

Further to post 221; the full article. A good balanced write up i feel!!

Citywire Tip: a really speculative punt for your wallet
Published: 16:32 Tue 11 May 2004




Earthport has been trying to flog its electronic wallet software since it was a young pup on Ofex and then since it moved to AIM in 2001, but today's deal with Wanadoo, now owner of Freeserve, should mean that patience is a virtue.

With a story that suited the 1999/2000 view that the internet was about to take over the world, earthport managed to move from Ofex to AIM, where it has languished ever since.


Beleaguered by early management problems and then by controversy over the role of investment boutique Gelande, which was brought in to rescue the then struggling company in December 2001, earthport (EPO) began to show early signs that it was finally getting its act back together last summer. Citywire highlighted the company in August, but warned that although the Gelande issues were apparently being sorted out, it was still a very risky-looking play.


We reported that Gelande, which was also run by Cunningham, had rearranged its relationship with earthport. Gelande was left with 20% of earthport subsidiary ensurePay and 5% of earthport mediaPay, to which it had introduced business. Gelande also swapped its former commission-based agreement and options for non-tradable warrants for 80 million shares. Gelande will pay a total of 2.8 million for the shares over four years to 2006 at prices ranging from 2.5p last year to 5p in 2006.


Another issue had been that although he was chief executive, Rob Cunningham wasn't actually on the earthport board. On 2 April it was announced that he would join the board as of 4 May. Chief operating officer Russell Clarke also became a director at the end of April.


Citywire has learned that at a meeting last week the earthport board apparently signed off all issues relating to Gelande, and there are now 'no outstanding issues.'


Today earthport has finally announced what should be its first major deal, to provide a complete suite of software based around its 'stored value' wallets to Wanadoo.


Stored value wallets enable internet users to upload a sum of money to the wallet, and spend that money as and when required in micro amounts as small as 1p, with different vendors and without having to use a credit or debit card for each transaction.


Last August, Cunningham told Citywire that the company had signed nine deals by June and was on target for 20 by the end of the year.

Today he said that by December earthport had at least 13 clients that it was about to take live, but that it made a decision to 'promote' the Wanadoo deal to the top of the list, because Wanadoo's requirement was for a more comprehensive system which, once developed, would benefit all clients.


The system will be delivered to Wanadoo by the end of June/early July and Wanadoo is set to launch services later in the year that use the wallet for payment. Earthport will receive a small payment per transaction.


Cunningham said there were other blue chip customers in the pipeline, and all thirteen customers referred to earlier are now up and running using various modules of the system.


The company identified six main business areas last year to target; mobile, media, government, person-to-person transactions, gaming and travel. Today Cunningham said it has so far sold into four of these. One customer is the Hong Kong Post Office, which will use identity cards and internet kiosks to enable people to make small purchases using the wallet technology.


Cunningham said that the Wanadoo deal was what the company had said it would deliver last July, and today's news was 'a tick in the box that we have achieved what we said we would.'


Shares are up 0.25p at 2.5p, valuing the business at 13.7 million.


Citywire Verdict:


One thing that technology companies have always been guilty of is announcing products or systems that are really no more than ideas or work in progress, and earthport has been particularly guilty of that.
The electronic wallet has always seemed like a good idea, but as today's admissions prove, it has only just become a fully developed, saleable system.


Fortunately for earthport, the demand would not have been there to meet the software a couple of years ago anyway. Whether it is there now remains to be seen but if anyone is going to find out it is likely to be Wanadoo.


The history of this company makes the shares look still pretty risky. On the other hand, if the software is really about to have its day this ought to be a penny share with far greater upside risk than downside.


Revenues and a fast track to profitability will be the proof of the pudding, but real risk lovers might want to take a gamble now.