Mr. Dattels: Finelot started life as an art and antique auction site, however it's transforming into a Highstyle luxury portal.
TWST: What have been the corporate milestones? When was the company
created, and what has motivated the change from art and antique auction
site to a luxury portal?
Mr. Dattels: The Company was formed in January 1999; it became a Website
in September of 1999. The concept was based on my background of
financing Internet companies, my wife's involvement in the art and
antique business and the explosion of the ebay phenomena. I moved to
England in December of 1999. We entered into an agreement with John Bly,
the Chairman of the British Antiques Dealers Association and a long-
standing member of the UK Antiques Roadshow, to become Chairman of the
company and put together a network of a substantial number of leading
fine art and antiques dealers in the United Kingdom, which became the
core of this Website. In January 2000, the Website was fully launched
with Fairmarket, a US auction platform, and all of the listings were put
on 15 different portals such as Microsoft, Lycos, Excite, Altavista,
etc, which gave the Website and our product significant traffic. In
April a redesigned Website was launched, the new site moved the content
beyond art and antiques into contemporary design products, luxury goods,
a heavy amount of contemporary art; whilst at the same time we
introduced the Highstyle area. This aspect of the site is focused on
luxury goods and services. Finelot is now going to become what we
believe will be a leading luxury portal at the high end of the market
whilst maintaining an emphasis on art and antiques. Williams de Bro‰
took the company public in December 2000 on the Alternative Investment
Market of the London Stock Exchange. We raised GBP3.5 million and these
funds were used principally to launch our magazine publication which
will be published in late spring in the United States. The Finelot
Highstyle Magazine, called FINE, will be published by our Magazine
partner Pure Imaging, based in Watertown, Massachusetts. In addition to
Finelot Highstyle, Pure Imaging also publish The Catalogue of Fine Art
and Antiques. This magazine has the support of about 200 high-end
dealers, mostly US dealers and it is proposed that these additional
dealers will become members of the Finelot Family. We expect in the next
three months to have 400 of the top dealers in the world submitting
content to our high-end Website. It is also part of our strategy to
have a bricks and mortar business. Our traditional businesses of Gallery
ownership and magazine publication supplement our e-commerce business.
These traditional businesses, drive the cash flow for the Company while
the e-commerce business develops; thus we have a unique clicks and
bricks strategy: Gallery, Magazine and Website. The Gallery located at
25 Bury Street in the St James's fine art and antique district in London
has been completely renovated and will feature mainly contemporary art
from major well-known and established US artists. The gallery premises
also acts as our cataloguing centre and as far as we're aware is the
first fine art and antique cyber shop in the world. Visitors are able to
browse samples of artists' work in the gallery and then look at other
offerings from the same artist on the Website. The Gallery is also
contributing cash flow. We have a very low operating overhead, the fixed
cost for running the whole operation is quite modest. By adding real
businesses that can develop some meaningful cash flow we hope to get to
profitability sometime in the latter part of this year, from the
magazine, the gallery and the sale of merchandise.
Tickers included in this excerpt: FNL.L
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