The weekly newsletter for everyone interested in barter--the world's most versatile business tool!

April 8, 2003

Written by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews

International Monetary Systems Reports Profitable Barter Operations In Annual Report

Non-barter Business Big Drag On Earnings

International Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM) reported revenue of $3.6 million for 2002, up from $2.5 million for the previous year. The significant increase in revenue was due to the acquisition of Tradecorp (Columbus, Ohio) and to the continued internal growth of Continental Trade Exchange's (CTE) barter network. Barter transactions increased from $16 million in 2001 to $24 million in 2002.

CTE reported earnings of $414,215, compared to earnings of $28,982 in 2001. Barter group earnings, however, were offset by a $59,745 loss in the JM Graphics division, which included $26,000 for uncollectible receivables and a $153,604 loss by International Corporate Services, the four-color printing division.

Don Mardak, President and CEO, attributed the losses in the non-barter operations to a general slowness in the printing industry. For more information on International Monetary Systems see the company's web site: www.internationalmonetary.com.

One Person Can Make A Difference

John Thornton's unexpected decision to leave Wall Street's Goldman Sachs Group (and a huge salary...$11.21 million) to become a full professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University is indicative of the good things that take place around the globe that will, over time, make the world a better place.

The 49-year-old Thornton, Goldman's president and co-chief operating officer, is choosing to teach for free, "I always knew I'd stop working at Goldman and do something oriented toward the public good." According to Thornton, "the single most important thing to happen in our lifetime will be the emergence of China."

The appointment shows Beijing's growing willingness to turn to outside professionals to help guide the country's transition to a market economy. Thornton is the first senior Western business leader to teach a regular course at Tsinghua since the Communists came to power in 1949.

His first project will be a seminar that brings chief executives of multinationals into the classroom to share their business experiences and philosophies with students of Tsinghua's business school and public administration graduate programs.

Editor's Note: One person can indeed make a difference: Consider Millard Fuller's idea, in the mid-70's, of getting a few volunteers together to build a single, very modest home...to help break the cycle of poverty. An idea that's grown and grown, it now results in one house being built every 26 minutes, or 55 houses a day and 21,000 a year! All privately funded by Habitat for Humanity. (More than 125,000 homes have been built since that first day in 1975.)

Bartering Of Stock & Options Still Plays Role In Business World

Four years ago, at the height of the dot-com boom, the exchanging of stock and options for equity in various companies was ubiquitous in its use. And while such wheeling and dealing is not as prevalent these days, their bartering still occurs as these examples show:

A) Donald Trump, chairman and CEO, bartered options in his Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts to acquire shares in Riviera Holding Corp., the Las Vegas casino company that owns the Riviera casino. Conjecture is, the Riviera shares will help in his pursuit of a license to operate other casinos in Nevada, as Nevada authorities require applicants to own a stake in a casino before applying for a casino license.

B) American Airlines workers have taken the first step to exchange hefty labor concessions in exchange for options to purchase nearly 38 million additional shares of American's common stock. Which would give them ownership of 19.5% of the company.

C) Lucent Technologies settled a massive shareholder litigation of $568 million, one of the largest such settlements in history, by providing $315 million in a mix of cash and stock to five million shareholders. (Lucent will have discretion to issue either stock or cash.) Its insurers agreed to pay another $148 million in cash to shareholders. And plaintiff attorneys will collect fees of up to 20% of the total settlement—approximately $115 million—paid in the same proportion of cash, stock, and warrants that the shareholders get total fees.

SPECIAL Announcement: Be a part of the largest, most all-inclusive special real estate report we've ever published...coming in the next issue of BarterNews. If your company offers any type of real estate service (assisting sellers and buyers, offering notary, property management, or counseling services) you should be in this special issue. Plus, of course, all types of properties available on trade—anywhere in the world! To get your company's ad in this unique issue contact: bmeyer@barternews.com... Do it now, so you don't miss this great issue!

The following message was used to promote one's trade exchange. The exchange owner sent this flyer/message out to every member....

Trade Is The Competitive Edge-Spread the Word!

We have begun co-publishing a monthly newsletter entitled The Competitive Edge that is a generic overview of barter in today's competitive marketplace.

In addition to providing the newsletter to you (our members) we have also begun a prospecting campaign using the publication. Each month we mail The Competitive Edge to businesses that would be an asset to our exchange, and follow up with phone calls.

Many trade exchanges have successfully used this newsletter, published by BarterNews magazine, to educate potential clients about trade and therefore attract new members. And we hope to have the same results here!

You can help us spread the word by providing some counter space or other conspicuous area to display The Competitive Edge to your clients. Waiting rooms, bookshelves, reception areas...wherever your customers have a chance to pick up a copy of the newsletter, they also will have a chance to find out more about bartering in today's economy.

Each month's issues offers new insights into the advantages of using trade and how it can improve a company's cash position. Every business owner will find the articles interesting and educational.

To learn more about The Competitive Edge newsletter and how it can help build your trade exchange, click here.

Every barter company in the world is listed here click through to our global list of barter companies.

PLEASE NOTE: The Global List of Barter Companies has been updated. Check out the new companies added, as well as changes made to the existing listings.

Also, the U.S. list of barter companies has been recently updated. Check it out!

If you haven't read the current issue of BarterNews, get yourself a copy now! Orders are shipped the same day we receive them. (Click on Order Form.)

Get New Money-Making Ideas, and Valuable Contacts!

You can obtain these ideas and contacts in every every available back-issue of BarterNews.

• On July 4, 2002, the barter industry lost Bruce Harris to a heart attack. The St. Louis Community Center is paying tribute to Bruce's memory through one of his favorite programs, the JCC Maccabi Games—an annual Olympic-style event for Jewish teens around the world.

  This summer 1,700 teens from all over the world will come together in St. Louis for a week-long celebration of athletic competitions, social events, and community service that will create a lifetime of memories.

  The St. Louis JCC and the family of Bruce Harris are dedicating the Souvenir Program Guide in his memory. Many people in the barter industry were touched by Bruce, and if you'd like to make your contribution to the 2003 St. Louis JCC Maccabi Games in the memory of Bruce Harris, send your donation to: St. Louis JCC Maccabi Games, 2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, MO 63146.

• Developers of a new hotel going up in the lower east side of Manhattan are partnering with Surface magazine, an upscale urban-lifestyle title, to create rooms that reflect the design ethos of the publication.

  The hotel will be using furnishings as a marketing tool to sell furnishings, i.e. the hotel rooms will be "changing showrooms."

  The deal is a good one for the magazine, which has a circulation of around 125,000. Editors of Surface will help select furniture, wall coverings, curtains, and carpeting for the standardized rooms. The magazine is looking to set marketing deals with high-end name brands that can sprinkle their products throughout the hotel.

  Terms of the deal call for the hotel to pay the magazine $100,000 and give it a small equity stake; the hotel will also pay annual licensing fees.

• Have you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of this issue (right hand corner) to sign up!

• Cinnabar Enterprises (OTCBB:CINN) has launched a new full-service travel agency—Cinnabar Travel. It joins the company's two other holdings, Cinnabar Media and BarterOne.

• A study by the International Monetary Fund says, after carefully examining housing and stock booms and busts over the past 30 to 40 years across 21 industrialized countries, that housing-price busts occurred less frequently but caused twice as much damage, i.e. had a greater effect on consumption and banking systems.

  The study found that housing and stock booms differed in several important ways. Housing price booms occurred once every 20 years, with 40% ending in busts, compared with every 13 years for stock booms, 25% of which ended in busts. Housing prices fall less than stock prices in a bust—an average of 30%—because houses are less easily traded and their prices are less volatile.

• China's state-run television (CCTV-1) is providing a remarkable sight to its viewers, a largely non-ideological and non-censored coverage of the war in Iraq on what has long been the government's most carefully controlled news outlet. There are also no diatribes against U.S. hegemony, no assertions of the Chinese government's opposition to the war. (The Communist Party isn't totally absent, however, as they do require that reports include news of Iraqi civilian casualties and not hype U.S. military capabilities.)

  The news coverage could be a dress rehearsal for the launch of CCTV's 24-hour news channel, slated for May, and a precedent for covering future news events. Advertisers have responded with commercials totaling three minutes every half-hour, compared to the usual 1-minute of commercials run per hour.

• ITEX Corporation (OTCBB:ITEX) has announced the departure of its Chief Financial Officer, Daniella Calvitti. No disruption of services are expected as a result of Calvitti's departure.