Baltimore shares lose another 10%
Having announced it has sold its last remaining asset yesterday, its core PKI security business for around €7m, Baltimore executives will now decide what they can now do with the company, which is essentially a cash shell.
The value of the company is a far cry from the dotcom days when Baltimore was a member of the FTSE100 index of largest companies in Britain having been bought in the early 1990s by former chief executive Fran Rooney and a group of investors for a few hundred thousand euro.
The company floated in London in 1997 and made millions for the investors, which included the financier Dermot Desmond.
At the height of the boom the company shares traded at nearly €20, giving the company a market value of over €10bn, bigger than that of Ryanair and Irish Life & Permanent and Anglo Irish Bank combined.
The value also eclipsed that of the other Irish dotcom stars such Trintech, Smartforce, Riverdeep and Parthus. The company also went on acquisition spree, buying up Content Technologies for close to 1bn only to sell it later for 5% of that price.
When the technology bubble collapsed Baltimore was hit badly with the share crashing down and brokers beginning to issue sell notes and the shares are 97% below their all-time high.
The company was not helped in March 2001 by comments made by Mr Rooney, who let slip to analysts in Dublin at a briefing that the company would not meet sales forecasts.
Under pressure to perform, the chief executive and former football star left. Over the years he had sold part of his stake, netting €8.1m in 2000 by selling part of it.
At the height of the boom his shares were worth close to €143m, but are now worth just a fraction of that. In the year he left Baltimore he was paid €651,000 in salary and bonuses and has since become chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland.
In late 2001 Bijan Khezri was appointed chief executive and set about disposing of non-core business to conserve the company's cash.
Earlier this year, he put the for-sale sign over the company's door and admitted it was not big enough to continue to go it alone as a major player in the security software sector.
The sale process did not fish out a buyer and the assets have been sweated down to what is left, namely one or two legacy businesses and €41m in cash.
According to brokers yesterday there are a few options for the company. It could make an acquisition and try to build up a small business from scratch or it could distribute the cash pile, equivalent to 53p per share, to shareholders and wind up the company.
Another option would be for a private firm to back itself into Baltimore to obtain a quote.
A Baltimore spokesman said yesterday that management were considering their options for the best way forward for the company.
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