Dot-coms crash and burn in new economy slump

More gloom fell upon the dot-com economy today as news of further UK b2c failures emerged. Flagship b2c site Lastminute.com's share price fell below 100p for the first time on the London Stock Exchange yesterday. On the opening of morning trading the price continued to fall, down 9 per cent to 85.5p.

Lastminute.com's market value is now under £150m, after reaching a high of £800m upon flotation in March. This news comes as Lifestyle site ebop has laid off all its staff and will call in the liquidators if no further funding is found by the end of the month. MD of the site Michael Murphy - who has been unable to pay staff wages for the last month - puts its failure down to the loss of confidence in dot coms. However he claims the company is on the verge of breaking even, and needs just £0.75m to tide it over. It is currently looking for a buyer. In the US, troubled Priceline saw its shares plummet 25 per cent yesterday after it emerged Maryann Keller, head of its automotive business, left last week. This is on top of last week's high profile exit of CFO Heidi Miller. Keller is quoted in the Wall Street journal as saying the time hasn't come for selling cars over the internet "and may never come".