Tipped by the independent 2/01/2004

........."And so to our traditional "wild card". Pipex Communications, formerly known as GX Networks, is a telecoms company created by one of the entrepreneurs behind Ukbetting, Peter Dubens. It has been assembled from six smaller players. The ambitious company is generating cash for the first time but is still not widely followed in the City. It could be an undiscovered gem".

Now we know why Dubens is so quiet!!!



Smoothie operators net 20m in Pepsi deal
By Jonathan Brown
23 February 2005


Pete and Johnny: they are the Californian dudes who inspired Britain's 33m-a-year love affair with the smoothie, the fruit-flavoured drink that has provided breakfast balm to a detox generation.

For Harry Cragoe, the creator of PJ Smoothies, the eponymous Pete and Johnny embodied the health-giving, life-enhancing properties he wished to bring to a pasty-faced public when he returned to Britain from California in 1994 armed with his special recipe.

Yesterday, as the company was sold to the US multinational PepsiCo for a figure industry insiders estimated as close to 20m, one of the most closely guarded secrets in business emerged - the real identities of Pete and Johnny. According to the funky PJ website, the drinks offer "100 per cent fuss-free fruit, made by Pete and Johnny". But neither of them are the surf bums of the marketing blurb, The Independent can reveal. Pete is none other than Peter Dubens, the young telecoms entrepreneur behind Pipex Communications, while Johnny is Jonathan Sieff, the chief executive of the Global Brands consultancy and grandson of Lord Sieff, long-time chairman of Marks & Spencer.

Yesterday the businessmen expressed astonishment and amusement that their identities had been rumbled. They said they had made no money out of the brand, merely lending it their identity. "It was all a long time ago. We only gave our names," said Mr Sieff, 38. Mr Dubens, also 38, admitted he was not the greatest advert for a health drink, and said he and Mr Sieff had never come close to the ideal of the West Coast man - even during their younger days. "We were all friends and they were trying to think of a name and they asked for ours. We are very, very pleased for Harry," he said.

Mr Sieff can now boast Warner Bros and Planet Hollywood among his clients, along with Marco Pierre White and Arsenal's Patrick Vieira. Mr Dubens, who made his first million at 22 while in partnership with Mr Sieff selling T-shirts that changed colour in the heat, runs an online sports betting firm.

The men shared the enterprising spirit of the age with Mr Cragoe, 39, whose own story could come straight out of an entrepreneur's text book.

The former City broker was running an air filtration distribution company in Los Angeles in the early 1990s when he first tasted a smoothie. Returning to Britain he put everything he had into the product, selling his flat, car and investments, so convinced was he that UK consumers were ready to switch their loyalty from the squeezed fruit juices on offer. He began selling his drinks at 12 small convenience stores in London, but importing the frozen ingredients from the US proved impossible.

In 1998 be bought an old meat processing plant in Newark, Nottinghamshire, and within three years it was making 250,000 bottles a week, and PJ was selling in major supermarkets.

Mr Cragoe, who once fell off an 80ft cliff and survived, has overseen the expansion in the number of flavours he offers. But the new smoothie kid on the block, Innocent,last year overtook PJ as the market leader by month on month sales.

This week PepsiCo, the $27bn (14bn) global food giant which already owns the Tropicana and Copella brands, signed the deal with PJ. Soft drink manufacturers have been keen to expand their "healthy" drink portfolios, as concerns mount over sugar and obesity.

This has not always met with success. Coca-Cola had to withdraw its Dasani mineral water after it emerged that not only was it bottled from a tap in Sidcup, but some bottles had been contaminated with a carcinogen.

Surely good news for the sector in general?


Broadband boom lifts PlusNet
MoneyAM
UK internet service provider, PlusNet, reported a rise in its underlying maiden annual profit, and said the outlook for broadband revenues in 2005 remains strong.

In the year ended December 31st, pretax profit before exceptionals advanced to 3m, from 1.8m last year. After the one-time 1.2m cost of floating on AIM, profit was largely flat.

Turnover increased 60% to 27.8m. Operating profit before the exceptional costs of flotation surged 58% to 2.9m, giving earnings before exceptional costs of 7.63p a share, up from 5.26p last time.

The company, which floated on AIM in July last year, said broadband customer numbers almost doubled to 89,825. Average revenue per user across its customer base increased from 113 to 137, reflecting the increasing share of broadband subscriptions in turnover.

'We have enjoyed record levels of growth in both customer numbers and operating profit before exceptional flotation costs and closed 2004 well positioned to take advantage of further developments in the Broadband market,' Lee Strafford, CEO, said.

'The group will continue to explore acquisitions that would add significant value to the business, but will only pursue an acquisition if it will enhance shareholder value and not dilute PlusNets profitability,' he added.

Foitek

plusNet share price has almost doubled since august. shame we have not seen a similar rise with Pipex.

Surely if we are patient we will be rewarded! Everything you read says telecoms are the sector to be in for 2005 after being out of favour for so long. I have held for twelve months so I think I'll hang in there but have felt bored with this company at times.

News [Internet]
Wednesday 23rd February 2005

Pipex takes new broadband tack 5:29PM
Pipex is following hot on the heels of Lixxus and PlusNet, with high speed 'Pay-As-You-Go' broadband services.
It's new Pipex Lite range of services allows customers to have a 2Mbps connection and a monthly data allocation of 2GB, 5GB and 15GB a month. Additional capacity can be prebooked at 2.50 per GB.

It's difficult to say whether this is data capping, because unused data allocation is carried on to the next month, or pay-as-you-go, because it doesn't have the kind of granular data blocks offered by Lixxus.

But price-wise, the service is unarguably competitive.

For Pipex Lite at 2Mbps, prices start at 19.99 a month (with the first three months at 14.99) for 2GB a month, 23.44 for a 5GB allocation and 27.99 for a 15GB allocation.

Pipex's unlimited services are now priced at 14.99 for a 256Kbps service, 23.44 for the 1Mbps service and 33.99 for the 2Mbps service.

Pipex says it is also participating in BT's network upgrade and that its existing customers should see bandwidths double in the coming months at no extra charge.

The services include a free modem and no setup fee.

Matt Whipp

Wakey Wakey..... Time these started to move. Volume up today. The sun is shining. Results due soon. Come on guys and girls show some enthusiasm.
I'm having a great ride on HCEG at the moment. Now its the turn of PXC

Volume up again today. Reading as sells. Look like 5x 1,000,000 of buys to me ? LOL

10,000,000 of trades. No movement yet. broker to broker trades, Late trades etc. It's got to happen soon.

Certainly hope so--I've waited a long time with these. Are results out soon?

Moneyplus

Results due end of month. Do not have an exact day.

troys

BLUE. Are we on the move now?

All buys no sells so far

Seen it all before far too many times.

dclinton, Hopefully we will be proved wrong

Lets see if we can hang on to this small gain

Thanks Troys--here's hoping for good results end of month. MP

LOL MP

Well, it kept its head above water today...

Very quiet. any news anyone...............

nope..