Editorial
Look out, the wallets are coming
The word on the street is that the New Zealand investor community has finally twigged to the fact that there are profits to be made out of this new "knowledge based economy" stuff.

I've heard of at least two successful local Net businesses that have been offered quite sizeable chunks of cash to sell out or divest themselves of a major chunk of their shareholding.

Great news eh?

Well I guess it is if your hi-tech business is already turning a pretty profit -- the problem is that very few of them are.

Unfortunately it would appear that although local investors are now hunting the tech-space for possible acquisitions, we're still miles away from having anything like a venture capital or angel investor market of any size.

The situation is somewhat like that which prevails in the publishing industry where mainstream publishers seldom risk starting up a new and different magazine or newspaper themselves -- they simply wait until someone else puts all their worldly wealth on the line to pursue a good idea and then, if it becomes a success, they'll step in and make an offer that can't be refused.

So, while this leaves the very few NZers who have a prospering, profitable knowledge-based business in an enviable position -- it does nothing to help the not insignificant number of would-be entrepreneurs who have some incredibly good ideas but lack both the capital and business acumen to do anything with them.

Still, I guess we shouldn't complain too much that the NZ hi-tech investment market has finally made it into the '90s.

Oh... and if anyone wants to clean out the coin tray of their car, they'd probably be able to buy Aardvark and still spend an hour in a downtown parking building :-)

Free republication rights available on request

Aardvark Reviews... IHUG's StarNet Trade & Exchange www.listener.co.nz (Updated 26 Mar) MS Image Composer Sony Mavica FD7 Epson 600 iomega ZIP