Shrinking Excite@Home Board

This is the second time in less than a month that the company has lost board members. Now that the board has been paired down, questions about Excite@Home's future are being questioned.

by Michael Singer of siliconvalley.internet.com [November 5, 2001]

Excite@Home (NASDAQ:ATHM), the bankrupt high-speed Internet provider, said that William R. Hearst III has resigned from its board of directors last week.

The board now has five members, composed of Mufit Cinali and John C. Petrillo the two directors remaining from AT&T (NYSE:T), one director from Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RG), one director from Hilton Hotels Corp. (NYSE:HLT) and Excite@Home CEO Patti Hart.

Hearst, who has been overseeing the Redwood City, Calif.-based company's dealings since August 1995, was also the former Editor and Publisher of the San Francisco Examiner.

As a general partner in VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Hearst was instrumental in bringing Excite Inc. and @Home Corp. together in a $7 billion merger in 1999.

This is the second time in less than a month that the company has lost board members.

After Excite@Home decided to sell its broadband business to AT&T back in September for $307 million, AT&T ousted C. Michael Armstrong, Frank Ianna, Charles H. Noski and Daniel E. Somer from its board in late October and told the company they could not replace them or appoint new ones.

Now that the board has been paired down, questions about Excite@Home's future are being questioned.

One thought is that AT&T may dump its cable properties, including Excite@Home, with another company.

Comcast (NYSE:CMCSK) and Cox Communications (NYSE:COX) remain primary candidates based on their desperate pledge to pump life into Excite@Home's service despite the company's announcement that it stopped adding new subscribers.

The other suggestion is that AT&T is trying to weaken the board so that they can split the company's other assets including the Excite media portal for a quick sale at a discount.

Robert White, the attorney representing Excite@Home in bankruptcy court, recently told the Wall Street Journal that a deal with unnamed "third parties" should be announced in a few weeks.

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Related articles:
	[Oct. 25, 2001]	AT&T Moves Out Of @Home
	[Oct. 12, 2001]	Excite@Home Cuts The Cord
	[Ict. 1, 2001]	Excite@Home Sells Assets To AT&T