Steel Connect

Last updated
Steel Connect, Inc.
Type Public
Nasdaq:  STCN
Russell Microcap Index component
Industry Supply chain management
Founded1968;55 years ago (1968)
Headquarters Smyrna, Tennessee
Key people
Warren G. Lichtenstein (Interim Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman)
RevenueIncrease2.svg $819 million (2019)
Decrease2.svg -$66 million (2019)
Total assets Decrease2.svg $731 million (2019)
Total equity Decrease2.svg $52 million (2019)
Number of employees
1,358 (2019)
Website www.steelconnectinc.com
Footnotes /references
[1]

Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies.

The company was formerly known as College Marketing Group, CMG Information Systems, and ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc.

History

The company was formed in 1968 as College Marketing Group by Glenn and Gail Mathews. At first, the company sold mailing lists of university faculty to textbook publishers. [2] In 1986, after a leveraged buyout, David Wetherell became CEO,[ citation needed ] and the company became known as CMGI, Inc. [2]

In February 1994, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. That same month, Wetherell founded BookLink, in which the company invested $900,000. BookLink was sold to America Online in November 1994, and the company used the proceeds of the sale to set up CMG @Ventures, a venture capital firm that invested in internet companies. [3]

The company invested $1 million for an 80% ownership interest in Lycos, which was its most profitable investment. In 1997, the company invested in Geocities and it also formed Navisite. [4] [5] In June 1999, the company agreed to acquire an 83% stake in AltaVista from Compaq for $2.3 billion. [6] In September 1999, the company acquired AdForce, founded by Chad Steelberg, for $500 million. [7] In November 1999, Altavista acquired RagingBull.com after Wetherell noticed the website while on vacation. [8] During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the naming rights to the new home stadium of the New England Patriots. Between 1995 and 1999, it had the best-performing stock in the United States, returning 4,921%. After the crash of the bubble, the stock price fell 99%.

In March 2000, the company acquired Yesmail. [9] In April 2000, the company acquired uBid. [10] In May 2000, the company acquired Tallan, Inc. for $920M. [11] In August 2000, the company agreed to pay $7.6 million per year for 15 years for the naming rights of the home stadium of the New England Patriots. [12] In August 2002, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the company modified the agreement and the stadium name was changed to Gillette Stadium. [13] In 2000, the company recorded a $661 million gain when Yahoo! acquired its interest in GeoCities. By that time, its stock price had declined 78% from its high earlier in the year. [14] In February 2004, the company acquired Modus Media. [15] In September 2008, the company changed its name to ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc. [16] In December 2017, the company acquired IWCO Direct for $476 million in cash. [17] In February 2018, the company changed its name to Steel Connect, Inc. [18] In May 2023, Steel Partners acquired majority control of the company and infused $200 million of cash into the company. [19]

Related Research Articles

LookSmart is an American search advertising, content management, online media, and technology company. It provides search, machine learning and chatbot technologies as well as pay-per-click and contextual advertising services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AltaVista</span> Web search engine

AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own search engine. On July 8, 2013, the service was shut down by Yahoo!, and since then the domain has redirected to Yahoo!'s own search site.

Chemdex Corporation, later known as Ventro Corporation and then NexPrise, Inc., was a B2B e-commerce company that first operated an online marketplace for products related to the life sciences industry such as laboratory chemicals, enzymes, and equipment, but later expanded into a few other industries. It was notable for its $7 billion market capitalization during the dot-com bubble despite minimal revenues.

webMethods Enterprise software company, division of Software AG

webMethods was an enterprise software company focused on application integration, business process integration and B2B partner integration. Founded in 1996, the company sold systems for organizations to use web services to connect software applications over the Internet. In 2000, the company stock shares rose over 500% the first day it was publicly traded. In 2007 webMethods was acquired by Software AG for $546 million and was made a subsidiary. By 2010 the webMethods division accounted for almost half of the parent company's revenues. Software AG retained the webMethods name, and uses it as a brand to identify a software suite encompassing process improvement, service-oriented architecture (SOA), IT modernization and business and partner integration.

Commerce One, Inc. operated online auctions focused on B2B e-commerce. At the peak of the dot-com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of $21.5 billion.

SunGard was an American multinational company based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, which provided software and services to education, financial services, and public sector organizations. It was formed in 1983, as a spin-off of the computer services division of Sun Oil Company. The name of the company originally was an acronym which stood for Sun Guaranteed Access to Recovered Data, a reference to the disaster recovery business it helped pioneer. SunGard was ranked at 480th in the U.S. Fortune 500 list in the year 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cobalt Networks</span>

Cobalt Networks was a maker of low-cost Linux-based servers and server appliances based in Mountain View, California. The company had 1,900 end user customers in more than 70 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Divine, Inc.</span>

Divine, Inc., originally Divine Interventures, was a company that invested in internet companies during the dot-com bubble. The company was originally modeled after CMGI but changed its business plan after the bubble burst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AboveNet</span>

AboveNet was a provider of high bandwidth telecommunication circuits primarily for large corporate enterprises and communications carriers in 17 markets in the United States and 4 markets in Europe. Its private optical network delivered key network and IP services and was used in financial and legal services, media, health care, retail, and government.

uBid Online Auction Company

uBid.com was an online auction style and fixed-price shopping website offering goods sold directly by the company and items sold by pre-approved third party uBid-certified merchants. The site specialized in excess new, refurbished and overstock consumer electronics such as computers, electronics, home goods, jewelry, watches and cellular phones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vignette Corporation</span>

Vignette Corporation was a company that offered a suite of content management, web portal, collaboration, document management, and records management software. Targeted at the enterprise market, Vignette offered products under the name StoryServer that allowed non-technical users to create, edit and track content through workflows and publish it on the web. It provided integration for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and legacy systems, supporting Java EE and Microsoft.NET. Vignette's integrated development environment and application programming interface offered an alternative to conventional Common Gateway Interface/vi/Perl web development. StoryServer was used on many large websites including those of CNET, UnitedHealth Group, The Walt Disney Company, Wachovia, Martha Stewart, Fox News, National Geographic Channel, Pharmacia & Upjohn, MetLife, BSkyB, the 2004 Summer Olympics, and NASA.

Geeknet, Inc. is a Fairfax County, Virginia–based company that is a subsidiary of GameStop. The company was formerly known as VA Research, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, and SourceForge, Inc.

Yesmail Interactive, is now known as Data Axle. The email marketing provider was previously headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Data Axle is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Omaha, Toronto, London and Singapore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VerticalNet</span>

Verticalnet, Inc. was a host of 43 business-to-business (B2B) procurement portals headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania. It was famous for its market capitalization of $10.89 billion on March 10, 2000, during the dot-com bubble, despite sales of only $112.5 million in 2000. Verticalnet was acquired by Bravo Solutions in 2008 for $15.2 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actua Corporation</span> Defunct venture capital firm

Actua Corporation was a venture capital firm. During the dot com bubble, the company had a market capitalization of over $50 billion. The company was originally known as Internet Capital Group, Inc. and changed its name to Actua Corporation in September 2014. In 2018, the company underwent liquidation.

RagingBull.com is a website focused on financial literacy and day trading.

SumTotal Systems, Inc. is a software company based in Gainesville, Florida, that provides human resource management software and services to private and public sector organizations. The company uses multiple cloud-based channels, including software as a service (SaaS), hosted subscription, and premises-based licensure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vista Equity Partners</span> American investment firm

Vista Equity Partners is an American private equity firm that invests in software, data, and technology-enabled businesses. With over $100 billion in AUM, it is one of the largest private equity firms in the world. Vista has invested in hundreds of technology companies, including Citrix, SentinelOne, and Marketo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Active Network, LLC</span>

References

  1. ↑ "Steel Connect, Inc. 2019 Form 10-K Annual Report". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
  2. 1 2 "GLENN MATTHEWS Obituary (1937 - 2013) - Wilmot, NH - Boston Globe". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
  3. ↑ "CMGI Can Defy Gravity Only So Long" . The New York Times . December 10, 2000.
  4. ↑ Simons, David (May 31, 2001). "Making Sense Of CMGI". Forbes .
  5. ↑ "CMGI cuts ties with past, sells NaviSite". The Register . September 12, 2002.
  6. ↑ "CMGI inks AltaVista deal". CNN . August 5, 2002.
  7. ↑ "CMGI acquires AdForce". CNN . September 20, 1999.
  8. ↑ "CMGI's AltaVista acquires Raging Bull" . American City Business Journals . November 29, 1999.
  9. ↑ "CMGI completes acquisition of yesmail.com" . American City Business Journals . March 13, 2000.
  10. ↑ "CMGI Agrees to Buy uBid In $407 Million Stock Deal" . The Wall Street Journal . February 10, 2000.
  11. ↑ "CMGI sets $920M purchase". CNN . February 14, 2000.
  12. ↑ Mannes, George (August 25, 2000). "CMGI buys stadium naming rights". ABC News .
  13. ↑ "CMGI Field is now Gillette Stadium". CNN . August 5, 2002.
  14. ↑ "CMGI beats estimates". CNN . September 21, 2000.
  15. ↑ "CMGI completes Modus acquisition" . American City Business Journals . August 2, 2004.
  16. ↑ McIntyre, Douglas A. (September 30, 2008). "ModusLink Replaces CMGI (MLNK, CMGI)". 247wallst.com.
  17. ↑ "ModusLink Announces Acquisition of IWCO Direct for $476 Million in Cash" (Press release). PR Newswire. December 18, 2017.
  18. ↑ "ModusLink Global Solutions, Inc. to Change Name to Steel Connect, Inc" (Press release). PR Newswire. February 26, 2018.
  19. ↑ "STEEL PARTNERS AND STEEL CONNECT CLOSE EXCHANGE TRANSACTION" (Press release). May 2, 2023 – via Gale.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.