Liberty Surf : optimism despite heavy losses

Liberty Surf, whose one of the subsidiaries is the start-up in Sophia Respublica.fr, has stated heavy losses during the presentation of its accounts on Thursday April 5th. Thus, the second Internet access provider in France has announced losses of 229.9 million euros. Ten times as much as the previous year and more than three times higher than its turnover 2000 (61.2 million euros, that's to say ten times as much as in 1999). Recently bought out by the Italian Tiscaly, Liberty Surf is still optimistic. Rafi Kouyoumdjian, who has taken over the founder Pierre Besnaimou, hopes to reach his first gross operating profit in December 2001. The new CEO, who is in charge of restructuring the Tiscali's assets in France, counts a lot on synergies resulting from the collaboration with World On Line and on the effects of Freesbee's integration, effective since March 1st.