Online music retailer ChaosMusic has continued the good run of
Australian Internet stocks by closing its share offering early due to high
demand.
Chaos closed its offering on December 1 and will set its listing price at
AUS$1.40 for its float later this month, valuing the company at AUS$39.1
million (US$25 million). The company said the weighted average price for
bids on its online book build, which is only the second performed in
Australia, closed at AUS$1.47, at the high end of the $1 to $1.50
indicative price range.
Some of the proceeds of the float have already been used to acquire
Melbourne-based “bricks-and-mortar” retailer Gaslight Records. Jeff
Harrison, formerly of Gaslight and now chief operating officer at Chaos,
said the company had huge potential.
“We are well on the way to providing the most efficient one stop source of
Australian supplied product for online customers,” he said.
Chaos will have to live up to the wildly successful float of Australian
rival Sanity, which doubled its listing
price in its float late last month. Sanity’s success came in spite of, or
arguably because of, a string of publicity about security holes in its Web
site which had allegedly opened a loophole for users to avoid paying for
ordered products (see
article).