Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Lion Inc - Top web property trapped inside

Lion Inc (LINN.OB) provides technology and business solutions for the mortgage industry. The company wasn't exactly doing great even while the mortgage industry was booming. Now that things have turned, the company seems to be just a few quarters away from running out of cash to fund its operations. The company's current market capitalization is a scant $6.5 million.

Lion's main distinction is the top web property mortgage101.com trapped inside of it. Mortgage101.com has the current honor of being the first non-sponsored search engine result when searching for "mortgage" in both Google and Yahoo. This search engine position beats out larger and generally more popular mortgage destinations like bankrate.com from Bankrate Inc. (RATE) and mortgage.com from ABN AMRO Holding (ABN).

The prospects for their non-Mortgage101.com related business are clearly shaky, since they depend on selling value added service to mortgage lenders. In their most recent quarterly results, overall revenue declined 21% to $3,537,000. Mortgage101.com revenues rose 8% to $388,000.

Why is this strategically valuable web property trapped inside of this tiny company? With the amount of money spent on search engine optimization and sponsored listings, mortgage101.com seems like low hanging fruit. Will someone try to acquire Mortgage101.com? Will Lion Inc finally figure out how to leverage the property more effectively?

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