PurchasePro pops 22 percent on 3Q results

PurchasePro.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPRO) zoomed up 22 percent Friday following third quarter results released Thursday. The company said net loss was $3.7 million, or 35 cents a share, beating the loss of 76 share predicted by First Call's consensus of 2 analysts.

Shares in the provider of business-to-business e-commerce services were up 5 5/8 to 41 5/8. PurchasePro.com soared in its recent IPO, from which it raised about $50 million, net of offering costs.

Revenue was $1.7 million, a 243 percent increase over revenue of $495,000 for the third quarter of 1998, and an increase of 70 percent over revenue of $1 million for the second quarter of 1999. The net loss for the quarter of 35 cents a share was wider than the net loss of $1.5 million, or 18 per share for the same quarter in 1998.

"We have built a large sales infrastructure with a presence in 16 major metropolitan areas, and plan to continue our aggressive rollout through the year 2000," said Charles E. Johnson, Jr., CEO. PurchasePro.com's release of a browser-based B2B e-commerce program has extended its reach and increased businesses in its network to over 2 million.

The company also has "hundreds of billions of dollars of buying power through our strategic alliances, like those recently announced with Primavera and Office Depot," Johnson said.