[London, ENGLAND] Online equity distribution platform
EO announced Friday
that Enterprise Service Provider
e-go systems is to
offer shares via EO’s placement service to raise
£10 million (US $14.5 million) from private
investors.
Shortlisted alongside Orange, Wildfire and Equant
for the Most Innovative Service award in the
World Communications Awards 2000, e-go bases its
offerings on its unique “e-gocentricity” framework.
This communications infrastructure is designed to
help companies improve both their internal workflow
and their external communications with customers.
Mark Stacpoole, chief executive of EO UK referred
to e-go as “an exciting young company with great
potential.”
“The outsourced e-communications market is expanding
rapidly, and further funding will allow e-go systems to
reap the opportunities this presents,” said Stacpoole.
Until EO came along to make early investment in companies
available to all, IPOs and ground-floor investment was
the sole province of institutions. EO has changed
that by making equity product offerings to retail
investors via its EO.net site.
Two early online offerings were the Carphone Warehouse
IPO and the Visual Technology private placement, both
of which were made on EO.net.
Ian Roberts, chief executive of e-go systems, was
fully supportive of the EO philosophy.
“Retail investors have traditionally had a raw deal — not
having access to early investment opportunities in exciting
high-growth companies. We want to ensure that the public
has that opportunity in e-go,” said Roberts.
Growing sophistication among private investors may
go some way towards protecting them from buying
potentially volatile stocks. However, investors will
need to pay more attention than ever to examining
the performance, management and prospects of companies
offering shares in private placements online.
Launched in March 1998, e-go has expanded rapidly,
achieving annual revenues of US$7.4 million, and
has managment with experience of working at
Lucent, AT&T, Nokia and Ericsson.
The offering in e-go opened Friday September 8.
