Macbank Infant Offers The Drum
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday May 31, 2000
Macquarie Bank has taken equity in an investor discussion site that from next Monday will offer real-time access to quotes and company announcements from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) at no cost.
Ozestock is the first venture to emerge from Macquarie's eDivision, an incubator set up to look for ``disruptive e-commerce opportunities" in competition with the bank's heavyweight venture capital arm, said program director Mr Peter Cooper.
Macquarie has taken a 30 per cent stake and a seat on the board of Ozestock.com.au, partly in exchange for office space and access to telecommunications, legal and accounting services. A former Macquarie trader, Mr David Wright, has also taken 10 per cent, leaving Ozestock founders Mr Pat Drummond and Ms Deidre Grace as majority shareholders.
Closely modelled on the US site Raging Bull, Ozestock plans to tackle stiff competition from existing investor gossip sites Hot Copper, InvestorWeb, Trading Room and Equity Cafe, by offering free access to live ASX quotes, company announcements and editorial from editor.com.
Most sites charge subscription fees for access to premium information. OzEstock instead plans to fund its service from advertising revenue, and has signed Your Prosperity and Ebay as foundation advertisers. ``The real value is in the community and the eyeballs being generated," said Mr Cooper.
OzEstock will distribute 20,000 tutorial CDs in investor magazines next month, and run banner advertising on the ASX site.
Live quotes from US exchanges would also be introduced, said Mr Drummond, formerly a funds manager in San Francisco.
Mr Cooper describes eDivision as an ``over-the-horizon radar for new investment banking opportunities". Its Web site says the group is unconstrained by demands for short-term profitability.
Other companies being incubated by eDivsion include AnnounceTV, a Webcaster which plans to allow listed companies to provide live announcements to the investment community, and Find-a-loan, a business and private loan broking site.
Mr Drummond said the recent dot com stock slump was a boon for investor discussion sites. ``People participate more actively when things are not going well."
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
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