Blackstar could soon be in ascent

VIDEO online retailer Blackstar might just be a Net star of the future. It has secured an investment of GBP 3.8 million from Atlas Venture and a bunch of Texans. Not bad for the Belfast business launched early last year with its initial stock balanced precariously on a table tennis table. Now it offers 50,000 videos online at www.blackstar.co.uk compared with a typical 2500 from your average High Street retailer. It claims customers in 95 countries and, unusually, to be generating profits on a turnover that has long since steamed past the GBP 1 million mark.When so many lossmaking Internet stocks are trading at massively inflated prices, Blackstar could just be worth watching should it go public late next year, as seems quite likely.

IT IS an extraordinary time of year - at least if the number of general meetings of that ilk are anything to go by. Monday sees three, but only one of the companies, Allied Domecq, has a website, www.allieddomecqplc.com which reveals nothing obvious to the uninitiated regarding the meeting. An attempt to contact Allied through the site produces another stony silence as the Teachers-to- Dunkin' Donuts group joins the growing list of bad e-correspondents.

Retail and office property company Delancey Estates meets to seek approval of an open offer of 17.8 million shares. This pops a cool GBP 20 million into their back pockets. You will not glean any of this by surfing the web but the company has taken a first step in the right direction by reserving www.delancey-estates.com for its future site. North of the border, Dawson International has not reached that happy stage so the knitwear manufacturing and marketing company clearly needs to pull its socks up.

The EGM should nod through the sale of its Pennsylvanian thermal underwear manufacturer, JE Morgan, although the first touches of autumnal nip cast some doubt on the timing of the deal. On the other hand, Dawson has Pringle and Ballantyne in its knitting basket, not to mention cashmere king Todd & Duncan. Fine second name that, but sadly, no relation.

Managing a fun win

TO escape all this activity, you might want to visit www.mbagames.com to test your management skills. The free demo area greets you with three questions and, in case you were wondering, Business-Day.Net just managed to scrape home on two of them. If you are prepared to raid the petty cash, for GBP 200 you can enter a team of up to six to play the business game Conglomerate. You will compete against teams from around the world over a period of eight weeks which, we are told, equates to a two-year business cycle. Time goes quickly when you are having fun and leaves you nicely tuned up for your return to the real world.

Good vibrations ..

HARROGATE-BASED plant and tool hire company Vibroplant holds its annual general meeting tomorrow.

A orkmanlike site www.vibroplant.co.uk proudly reminds us that the company is the current holder of the Construction Industry's prestigious award, Plant Hirer of the Year. Not at all surprising considering its list of achievements providing neighbourly support at the Albert Hall, helping to clean tanker Orangeleaf's bottom and supplying trench, manhole and drag boxes, mechanical and hydraulic struts and, just the thing for stroll on the pier, top-quality bracing systems.

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