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!)

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.

Also i notice that the shares are now trading outside the normal 1/4p slices. Not sure why this is but hopefully it will be easier to build on gains made!! Any comments why MM's have decided to do this now??

Looks like we are on our way.

Not too risky at this price so I doubled my stake when it dipped the other day.

Unless they rise too quickly then I expect to hold on to these for a couple of years.

A

Agreed, altho i have some way to go to break even! Nice 1mil "T" trade i see just gone thru!! Happy days!!

ALL

Shares mag update this morning;

Plays Updates

Earthport (EPO) HOLD/BUY

Earthport hosted an investor meeting last week at its new City office. (a detailed report is on the MoneyAM bulletin board.) On Tuesday, the company announced a deal to handle micro-payments for Wanadoo, the rebadged Freeserve. Last week the company said four major contracts were 95% agreed: this seems to be the first. Earthport looks longer term than hoped when we tipped it at 2.62p on 8 April, but the writer remains happy to keep his 1.2 million shares at 2.5p.

Turning to my Newstand copy of Shares this morning ( the walk does me good). I read that there was a presentation to investors (by Earthport, see p.6 Col.3) in London last week - I wonder who went? No nominees please.
"Shares" goes on to say that there is a report on the MoneyAM Bulletin Board - - so where is it?
Although I'm a regular reader ( I have copies going back to close-on the launch ), I don't subscribe (thereby doing WHSmith out of a turn) as the Post here is so late. [Difficult to imagine but I guess I'm at the end of the Round]...so I buy my copy on the way to the train, or whatever. It's a routine that suits me and I can read the whole mag before Postie sets foot on the step.
Or whilst revising my thoughts for a City meet. S----so er, I mean I can't view the "Trader Bulletin" - although I pay more for my copies that several I could mention!
Anyone know where this "report" is?
Ho

hangon,

If you click on the previous button on this thread, you will see it posted further back.

Ian

Big trades right at the mid price I wonder what is going on?

i bought 40k at the mid price yesterday, for some reason, my broker was able to get me in @2.55

no i'm pretty sure the contract note that barclays sent me this morning was for 2.55, and a friend of mine bought 19,000 fo the same price, i've got no reason to lie about something like that...

o'neill
you need to make sure your checking the right day it was the 13th yesterday, there were loads of trades all morning at 2.55,

and before you come back and try and tell me that they were all sells....

they are recorded as sells but not all of them were, i know for a fact because i can see my trades, size and time and price and my friends at the time he bought his recorded as sells,

oneill

I have previously seen one of my buys reported at more than the price I paid.

So MrDavis could be correct.

my trade is there at the price i paid, 2.55, it's just that it shows up as a sell,

Guys,

This may help with the above - it is the disclaimer from our trades page:

It should be noted that all trade declarations made by the market do not include a buy or sell indicator and therefore we have to derive this information ourselves. The policy we have adopted is based on the mid price of the stock at the time of the declaration. For example, a trade declared at a price that is higher than the mid price at the time of declaration would be put in the buy column, a trade lower than the mid price would be put in the sell column. A trade which matches the mid price would be considered unknown. Please also note that the market can delay declaration of the trades for up to an hour in which case we will not make any assumptions and place that trade in the 'unknown' column. Please also note that many investors are able to buy and sell within the spread and also users of level 2 systems will actually be buying at the perceived sell price, these trades might therefore appear to be wrongly categorised.