Globeset faces cash crisis

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Globeset faces cash crisis By James Mackintosh Published: October 31 2000 22:22GMT | Last Updated: November 1 2000 09:24GMT

Globeset, the Texas-based supplier of internet secure purchasing software to both the MasterCard and Visa credit card networks, has laid off almost all its 300 staff and closed its international offices after a cash crisis.

The privately owned company is now operating on a skeleton staff and is believed to be looking for a buyer for its technology.

Austin-based Globeset specialises in online payments and its backers - which are believed to have provided $66.5m in venture capital - are understood to include Deutsche Bank, American Express, Citigroup and Chase Manhattan. Oki Electric, which distributes Globeset's products in Japan, invested $2m in the company last month.

Jack Antonini, appointed as chairman and CEO of Globeset in July, did not return calls on Tuesday. No one else at the company's headquarters could be contacted.

Visa, which uses Globeset for its latest online purchasing software, said it was not panicking. "I am not a worried man," said Jon Prideaux, executive vice-president of Virtual Visa, the organisation's internet arm. "It doesn't have any impact in the short term and we are looking at three options going forward. Clearly it is an occupational hazard of working with start-ups that some of them do not succeed."

He would not say what the options were, or whether Visa was considering an offer to buy the technology from Globeset.

At the end of July, Mr Antonini told American Banker, a trade magazine, that revenues had quadrupled in a year and the company was "very solid, very strong, with a good group of investors".

However, a senior executive at a rival company said: "Globeset had good technology but they didn't have the strength and depth of capital to expand their business around the world from Austin."

The group's Slough, UK, office was still staffed on Tuesday but one employee, who refused to give his name, said: "The UK office is closed. As of the end of today we will no longer have an office in the UK." He confirmed that almost all US staff were told on Monday they no longer had jobs.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 01, 2000


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