By Kevin Murphy
E-commerce software vendor Intershop Communications AG is to seek a listing on Nasdaq, it emerged yesterday during one of former Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer’s first press conferences as chairman of the German company. The company hopes to use the listing to increase its US focus, which is not as large as it would like.
Intershop suffers brand recognition problems [in the US] because it is not US-listed, but we’re working on that, said Wilfried Beeck, CFO of the Neuer Markt-listed company. He said he anticipates a Nasdaq listing some time during 2000. The US accounted for 41% of Intershop’s revenue during the first nine months of 1999, compared to 33% in the equivalent period 1998. Beeck said this will rise to at least 50% next year, when he hopes the company will break even for the first time in four years. He anticipates 15% profits in 2001.
The move to New York is a natural progression for the Hamburg-based company. Intershop has had head offices in Germany and Silicon Valley since it started trading, and the recent recruitment of Pfeiffer to the board provides a familiar figurehead not only in his native Europe, but in the US. Pfeiffer’s role is said to be merely advisory in the new company. Just over one month into the job, his role at press conferences appears to be to recite much-repeated statistics on how big e-commerce is going to be, while refraining from mentioning his new employer in all but the vaguest marketing terms.
