Website Pros to offer common stock
Website Pros Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., said it has registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of common stock.
The company, which operates a call center in Spokane, designs and maintains Web sites for small and medium-sized businesses.
Website Pros’ call center, at 1425 N. Washington, has about 165 workers who make both inbound and outbound calls, a company spokesman said. It’s been in operation in Spokane since 2001, when Website Pros acquired former call center company Innuity.
A date for Website Pros’ IPO has not yet been announced.
Former PGE exec testifies to Enron investment
Houston The former head of an Oregon utility that Enron acquired testified Wednesday that he actively encouraged Enron’s foray into broadband.
Former Portland General Electric CEO Ken L. Harrison was the first witness for the defense in the trial of five former Enron broadband executives accused of lying about the unit’s capabilities to enrich themselves.
Harrison said he encouraged Enron to invest millions to turn his utility’s fledgling broadband arm into a leader in the then-burgeoning market. The broadband unit failed.
Harrison had been PGE’s chief executive for a decade when Enron bought the utility for $3 billion in 1997, an acquisition that helped Enron establish itself as a power trader.
The hefty price tag was a significant premium that Harrison said he considered a home run for Portland General shareholders. But he noted that “if they held on to it for too long, they didn’t do well,” referring to Enron’s December 2001 crash.
Harrison testified on behalf of defendant Joseph Hirko, who was Portland General’s finance chief until Enron acquired the utility. He praised Hirko’s trustworthiness and noted he recommended Hirko as finance chief for Portland General’s new parent.
Comcast plans digital phone service expansion
Philadelphia Comcast Corp. hopes its fledgling digital telephone service will soon become the cable giant’s next profitable venture as it continues efforts to expand its business, chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts told shareholders Wednesday.
The nation’s biggest cable company has been testing the telephone service in Indianapolis, Springfield, Mass., and in the Philadelphia region. This year, it plans to launch it in areas including Boston, Chicago and Seattle.
Roberts, speaking at the company’s annual meeting with shareholders at the Wachovia Center, said he expected the phone service to be “a great value for customers and, we think, a winner for shareholders.”
Comcast aims to offer its Digital Voice service in 20 markets this year and all its markets by 2006.
Auction site eBay to acquire Shopping.com
San Francisco EBay Inc. said Wednesday it would acquire comparison shopping and consumer review site Shopping.com Inc. for about $620 million in cash.
Executives at the San Jose, Calif.-based online auction giant said the purchase, expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2005, puts eBay sellers in touch with a new set of potential buyers and boosts the number of fixed-price sales listings, which are growing more popular with online shoppers.
The deal also expands the auctioneer’s efforts to provide more reviews and customer feedback about products listed on the site. Brisbane, Calif.-based Shopping.com controls Epinions, a site containing more than 400,000 amateur reviews on items ranging from computer servers to mountain bikes.
The acquisition caps an aggressive buying spree at eBay, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies and a rare dot-com survivor in Silicon Valley’s five-year economic downturn.
In December, eBay purchased the privately held Santa Monica, Calif.-based real estate firm Rent.com for about $415 million in stock and cash.