Tucows Looking for Love

Canada doesn't have too many exciting dot-com plays – perhaps because investors up here tend to be conservative by nature, which makes the Internet a very scary place. That said, Tucows Inc.
stands out because it's based in Toronto and it's the fourth largest domain
name supplier in the world. (Makes me want to belt out a rousing rendition of “Oh Canada”). The company gained a big supporter earlier this year when Mark Cuban acquired an 8% stake. This is Cuban's second stab at a Canadian dot-com. His initial foray – Mamma.com Inc.
- ended rather inauspiciously when Cuban abruptly sold his 6.6% stake after taking issue with a private equity offering
done by Mamma. It probably didn't help that Mamma is being investigated
by the SEC. Anyway, I'm digress. Tucows picked up analyst coverage -
well, one analyst – after long-time shareholders decided to unload 22
million, or about 30% of the company, three months ago. One of the reason that Desjardins Securities
analyst David Shore is bullish on Tucows because of its Blogware blog publishing tool, which competes against TypePad,
Blogger, etc. What makes Tucows interesting is it doesn't sell
directly but through a 6,000 network of ISPs and Web hosting
companies. The stock is selling for less than $1 a share, which means
Cuban probably spent his daily per diem on his stake. For more details
about Tucows, check out my story in today's Financial Post.