Supernova looking to broaden its domain

By ADAM GIFFORD

The internet is full of big numbers, particularly when money is mentioned. But often the numbers shrink when exposed to light.

Huge sums paid for websites may turn out to be exchanges of overvalued scrip between related parties. Sites with high hit rates may have front pages constructed of dozens of separate elements, with few unique users.

But there is always another trier in the world of cyberspace.

Take Trevor Suter, a Christchurch insurance broker. Caught up in the enthusiasm for things cyber, through that Anglican swampnte he issued a press release announcing that his company, Kelleher Suter & Associates, had bought internet advertising company Supernova Internet Corporation for $2.2 million.

A bit of online research reveals the main site to be an amateurish construction linking to a series of generic names. That part is impressive.

Supernova has cornered useful addresses such as houses.co.nz, properties.co.nz, employment.co.nz. plumbers.co.nz, printers.co.nz, nzjobs.com, nztours.com, nzhotels.com and 200 others.

It offers people the chance to advertise their wares or link their businesses on the sites, for a monthly charge. But there is none of the on-line transaction capacity and added services being built into the large business-to-business and business-to-consumer portals.

The sites are sparsely populated: the houses.co.nz site lists 11 homes in Auckland, 37 in Christchurch, one in Wellington, a Wanaka timeshare and a few more.

Even more curiously, there is no Companies Office listing for Supernova Internet Corporation, nor for Ad On the Net, the other company referred to on the sites.

And the owner of the domains is one Trevor Suter.

"Supernova is a 'trading as' entity," said Mr Suter.

"It started purely by accident about two years ago when we set up a web page for Kelleher Suter. That address proved useless, so we purchased domain names like brokers, businessinsurance and so on.

"Then we found other brokers came to us wanting to advertise or use the site."

What might work for competitors such as brokers might also work for clients such as printers, plumbers and travel agents, Mr Suter said.

He wants to develop 25 sites linked from his 220 domain names.

Mr Suter said the $2.2 million would be paid into the new entity by Kelleher Suter & Associates over the next two years. So far he has put in about $320,000.

The valuation was arrived at by looking at the price sought for domain names advertised on names.co.nz. The Suter/Supernova portfolio was averaged out at $10,000 each.

Not that Mr Suter paid that. Most were bought new from New Zealand's internet registry, Domainz, and a few from others with an eye for a generic.

"The highest price I've paid is $1250," Mr Suter said.

His business plan predicts a return from advertising revenues of $2.4 million a year.

"If you take a site such as printers.co.nz, there are 700 to 800 printers around the country, and a reasonable percentage may want to advertise on that site."

Mr Suter said he had no plans to seek a public share listing for the company.