ICICI plans new company for dotcom ventures

BANGALORE: ICICI is planning to float a new company for all its

business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer

(C2C) dot.com ventures.

The new company to be formed along the lines of US-based CMGI Inc., will

initially be a 100 per cent subsidiary of ICICI, will later raise funds through

an international listing on Nasdaq and/or placement of equity shares to

strategic foreign partners. Within the group, parent ICICI will continue to

directly hold stakes in all non e-companies. This new company is along the lines

of the dreams of ICICI chief K.V. Kamath, who had envisioned an Indian CMGI

company.

CMGI Inc, a Nasdaq-100 company, is in the business of creating and managing a

network of Internet companies in the world. Compaq, Intel, Microsoft and

Sumitomo hold minority positions in the US company. Among the 60-odd dot

companies that CMGI has acquired or built include names like AltaVista, HotLinks

and Lycos. These holdings are clubbed into four sub-groups of marketing and

advertising, content and community, e-commerce and enabling technologies

companies.

The new CMGI replicated structure is targeted at maximizing value from all

its in-house portals and consolidating all Internet-related companies within a

more common structure. This will, however, exclude ICICI Infotech which is more

focused on providing all the technological backbone for the group.