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Swisscom eyes Web IPO
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December 17, 1999: 10:04 a.m. ET
Blue Window may float in 2000; Swisscom seeks partnerships
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Shares of Swiss telecom carrier Swisscom rallied sharply Friday after the company unveiled plans to spin off a minority stake in its Blue Window Internet business - a move seen by markets as a possible prelude to a Web flotation.
Swisscom said it plans to constitute Blue Window as a separate unit in the first half of 2000 to give it more flexibility to form partnerships and seek growth. With around 38 million page views each month, Blue Window is the most frequently visited homepage in Switzerland, enjoying about a one-third share of the country's Internet market.
Swisscom said it intends to retain a majority stake in Blue Window.
"The Swisscom board of directors has given the go-ahead for privatization and the resumption of talks with the media company TA-Media," Swisscom said in a statement.
"The aim of the partnership is to consolidate the market position of Blue Window in the Swiss market." Separately, Swisscom said that while a flotation remains an option, no final decision had been taken yet.
TA-Media is a newspaper publisher whose titles include the daily, Tages Anzeiger. TA-Media is also a partner with the commercial TV3 television station launched earlier this year.
The announcement lifted Swisscom shares 4.4 percent to 642 Swiss francs in Zurich amid optimism Blue Window will mirror the success of recent European Internet IPOs.
Analysts told the Reuters news agency they estimate Blue Window, with its 300,000 customers, is worth about 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.28 billion).
Among successful European Internet IPOs this year, shares of U.K. service provider Freeserve shot up after its flotation by electrical good retailer Dixons, triggering a copycat spree across the continent that has yet to abate.
Last month, Spanish Internet provider Terra Networks, a unit of phone company Telefonica, almost tripled on their market debut in Madrid. Italian fixed-line operator, Tiscali, enjoyed similar initial success following the recent launch of its own free service provider. 
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