United Online's Future Looks Rosy - Barron's

Barron's notes that of the two major dial-up ISPs still doing business -- EarthLink (ELNK) and United Online (UNTD) -- the latter has managed to diversify into successful new revenue streams (Classmates.com and online loyalty marketer MyPoints), while the former has not.

Now United CEO Mark Goldston is making his most creative move yet: a recent announcement to acquire global florist network FTD (FTD). FTD will cost United about $800M.

Goldston contends his acquisition strategy is thematic: Both FTD customers and Classmates.com subscribers are 65% women, largely over 35, and make north of $50K a year. How's that for targeted marketing? Between its dial-up business and its websites, United boasts a client base of 50M+ to whom it can cross sell.

The dial-up business -- a veritable cash cow -- isn't exactly growing by leaps and bounds, but nor is it shrivelling up. Operating margin last quarter was a robust 38%, and Goldston contends the churn rate is dropping.

United currently yields 7.2% (which will be halved to help finance FTD). It has repurchased $150M in shares over the past three years. It trades for under 10x 2008 revenues. At some point, Goldston will manage to pull off his aborted attempt to IPO 20% of Classmates. Barron's says shares are cheap.

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• Larry Dignan fails to find any synergy in the FTD deal.
• On United's most recent conference call, Goldston says it's unlikely the company would pursue AOL's premium dial-up business. "The AOL business is an intriguing business, because it's a strong brand name as you know. That's the plus. The minus is they are a business that has predominately been in the premium segment of dialup, which is on the road to becoming an oxymoron, and so there are challenges there."

Comments

[Voicoff Com...:]

classmates.com has a complaint list a mile long:

www.consumeraffairs.co...

They apparently execute standard scams--trick people into signing up for free trials, then make it difficult or impossible to cancel, and create automatic monthly charge to credit card; no way to contact the company about problems; automatic monthly charges that continue indefinitely after cancellation, and on and on. (None of this has happened to me, personally, as I would never do a free trial after what I read.) If this is how they treat the customers, why should I believe the shareholders will be treated any better?

2008 May 11 09:34 PM

[jimmy46:]

I've been using Juno because it's cheap,
but the service is crappy with frequent disconnects.

I'm ready to go to DSL, I can't believe dial up has a future.

2008 May 11 10:59 PM

[wtmerge:]

For more information on the acquisition of FTD by United Online check out this site (presentation links, conference call etc)
www.willtheymerge.com/...

2008 May 12 10:05 AM

[jackooo:]

If u like long term try ELNK. I have had it for about 10 yrs and haven't made a buck yet.

2008 May 12 10:06 PM