Retailers and Investment Bankers Continue Their Heated Courtship

Wall Street's love affair with online retailing continues. According to Winterberry Group LLC, a New York investment banking firm, retailing accounted for 30% of all e-commerce deals for the first quarter 1999. In all, there were 42 deals consummated valued at $875.5 million. "There were 60% more retail deals this period than there were during the fourth quarter 1998 due to the tremendous interest during the holiday season," says Winterberry CEO Michael Petsky. The top 10 first quarter e-commerce deals were::

Company	Investor/Buyer	Investment
MovieFone	America Online	$388 million
Shopping.com	Compaq Computer	220 million
BUYDIRECT.com	Beyond.com	123 million
CompareNet	Microsoft	100 million
PlusNet	Nettaxi	70 million
Juno Online	Intel News	65 million
Interlink Computer	Sterling Software	64 million
City Auction	Ticketmaster	54 million
Databank	Digital Courier	50 million
Drugstore.com	Amazon	35 million