All the details, including a news release and financial statements can be found in our Investors area. We’ll be hosting a live conference call beginning at 5:00 P.M. ET today (Wednesday, May. 7th, 2008). As usual, we’ll record the call and post an archived MP3 within a few hours.
Update: the MP3 recording of the Q1 2008 conference call has been posted.
TORONTO, May¬†7,¬†2008 – Tucows Inc. (TSX:TC, AMEX: TCX) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program of up to $10 million for the repurchase of its common stock. Tucows has also filed a notice of intention with the Toronto Stock Exchange (”TSX”) to make a normal course issuer bid through the facilities of the TSX. Tucows will have the option to repurchase its shares of common stock either through the facilities of the TSX or the American Stock Exchange.
The notice filed with the TSX provides that Tucows may, during the twelve-month period commencing May 12, 2008, repurchase up to 6,361,769 shares of its common stock, which amount represents approximately 10% of the public float of Tucows. For purposes of any repurchases made on the TSX, Tucows may only purchase up to a maximum of 4,188 shares in any daily trading session, which number represents 25% of the average daily trading volume on the TSX over the six month period ending April 30, 2008, unless the block purchase exception is relied upon. As of May 7, 2008 there were 73,888,542 common shares outstanding. All shares purchased by Tucows under the normal course issuer bid will be cancelled.
The timing and exact number of common shares purchased will be at Tucows’ discretion and will depend on market conditions and may be suspended or discontinued at any time. Subject to applicable securities laws and stock exchange rules, all purchases will occur through the open market and may be in large block purchases. Tucows does not intend to purchase its shares from its management team or other insiders.
During Tucows’ previous stock buyback program which ended on February 15, 2008, Tucows repurchased 2,616,600 common shares.
NO STOCK EXCHANGE, SECURITIES COMMISSION OR OTHER REGULATORY AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN.
About Tucows
Tucows provides Internet services for web hosting companies and ISPs. Through its global network of over 9,000 service providers it provides millions of email boxes and manages over eight million domains. Tucows is an accredited registrar with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Tucows holds a domain name portfolio of approximately 150,000 domain names that are available for sale, monetized through advertising and support our wholesale Personal Names Service. Our Retail division sells Tucows services to consumers and small business owners through Domain Direct, ItsYourDomain.com and NetIdentity. Tucows.com remains one of the most popular software download sites on the Internet. For more information please visit: http://tucowsinc.com.
This release may contain forward-looking statements, including the timing and total number of shares to be purchased under the share buyback program, which are based on Tucows Inc.’s operations, estimates, forecasts and projections. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to important risks, uncertainties and assumptions concerning future conditions that may ultimately prove to be inaccurate or differ materially from actual future events or results. A number of important factors could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Consequently, investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are based on Tucows Inc.’s current expectations, estimates, projections, beliefs and assumptions. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and are based upon the information available to Tucows Inc. at this time. Tucows Inc. disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contact:
Leona Hobbs
Director of Communications
Tucows Inc.
(416) 538-5450
lhobbs@tucows.com
ISPCON Spring ‘08 kicks off next week. What’s billed as “The Internet Industry Event” runs Tuesday, May 13th, through Thursday, May 15th. We’re getting ready to make the trip and we hope to see you at Chicago‚Äôs Donald E. Stephen’s (Rosemont) Convention Centre.
Wednesday, May 14th, is “our day” with three Tucows-related events on the ISPCON schedule:
We‚Äôre gearing up for the show, and we‚Äôre looking forward to getting the chance to meet potential new, and current customers face-to-face. We’ll be in booth 114 as you can see on the map. See you there!
Many of you know me as one of the original OpenSRS guys, but more recently, I’ve been involved in running Tucows retail services – Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain. As you may have already read, effective today, we are getting out of the hosting business. You can read the full press release in our Media Archive.
Why are we doing this and what does it have to do with you?
From a retail perspective, we believe that it is extremely important for us to be able to provide world-class quality for all of the services we offer. By examining the market, seeking feedback from our end users, and discussing our strengths and weaknesses internally, one thing became clear. In order to provide world-class quality for all of the services we offer, we must simplify our service offerings.
Many of our competitors attempt to provide a “one-stop internet services shopping experience”. We call this “the Walmart way”. We believe that we have a much higher chance at succeeding by doing very few things extremely well for our clients. You could call this “the boutique approach”. Our goal is to help our customers use their domain names and email addresses with the great services that other companies are already providing. In other words, rather than trying to compete with companies like Hostopia to offer better hosting services than they do, we are going to focus on making sure that our products work better with their great services than any other provider does.
Tucows Resellers also benefit from this increased focus. My retail team spends a lot of time with the OpenSRS and Tucows Email teams to ensure that they understand where their services are succeeding and failing from a reseller perspective. Being in the building provides us with a great opportunity to improve these services for the benefit of all Tucows resellers. With the benefit of our increased focus, we will also be able to invest more time working specifically on translating everything that we are learning about how to sell domain names and email in a competitive market into programs that Tucows resellers will be able to take advantage of. These programs could take the form of new code, new services and new marketing programs, depending on what works best in each case.
I’m very pleased with this development as I really believe it will be of tremendous benefit to all of Tucows customers – retail and resale. Of course, if you have any questions about the specifics of the transaction, please feel free to leave us a comment and either myself, or someone from the team will respond.
And of course, we will be notifying all affected customers about this change and how it will affect their hosting service – if at all. Many of our shared hosting clients are already hosted with Hostopia, so the changes should be minimal for the vast majority.
Drives incremental growth for Hostopia as Tucows focuses its retail operations on email and online identity
TORONTO — May 6, 2008 — Tucows Inc. (AMEX: TCX, TSX: TC) and Hostopia.com, Inc. (TSX: H) yesterday signed a definitive agreement for Hostopia to purchase certain of Tucows’ shared hosting customer assets including approximately 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer accounts.
The full text of the news release is available at our media site.
Drives incremental growth for Hostopia as Tucows focuses its retail operations on email and online identity
TORONTO — May 6, 2008 — Tucows Inc. (AMEX: TCX, TSX: TC) and Hostopia.com, Inc. (TSX: H) yesterday signed a definitive agreement for Hostopia to purchase certain of Tucows’ shared hosting customer assets including approximately 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity and ItsYourDomain.com (IYD) customer accounts.
As we pointed out last week, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) which operates the .ca registry, is about to introduce some big changes to its existing WHOIS policies. The changes are largely associated with what information WHOIS databases, registrars and resellers are able to disclose about registrants.
These upcoming changes will have a pretty significant impact on some of our .CA policies. Specifically:
Our public WHOIS database, like CIRA’s, will protect registrant information by default. All personal information about individual registrants will be kept private, including the name of the Registrant and the name and any contact information.
These changes will come into effect on June 10. CIRA will begin messaging registrants about the upcoming changes this week.
Tucows is a proud sponsor of this evening’s CaseCamp Toronto 7. Hundreds of folks from Toronto’s digital marketing, social media, and communications community have signed up (on the wiki and/or the Facebook group) to attend. Tonight, our very own Bill Sweetman will be on stage to talk about the Tucows domain name portfolio to this group of digital gurus.
The action for this free communications and social media unconference gets started at 6:00 p.m. The event starts with networking and interactive art in the bar, followed by four 15 minute case-study presentations from the good people at TD Canada Trust, RedFlagDeals.com, Story2Oh!, and the Hospital for Sick Children.
Tucows plans to report its first quarter fiscal 2008 financial results via news release on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at approximately 4:00 p.m. (ET). Company management will host a conference call the same day at 5:00 p.m. (ET) to discuss the results and the outlook for the company.
More details and the full news release can be found at our media site.
TORONTO, April 29, 2008 – Tucows Inc. (TSX: TC, AMEX: TCX) plans to report its first quarter fiscal 2008 financial results via news release on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at approximately 4:00 p.m. (ET). Company management will host a conference call the same day at 5:00 p.m. (ET) to discuss the results and the outlook for the company.
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