As of Friday, IPO investors weren’t leaving early for vacation. There were
several mega IPOs. One was StorageNetworks
. The company is a leader in storage area
networks (SANS). SANS are becoming increasingly important as companies must
deal with huge amounts of data. Customers include Merrill Lynch, Yahoo!,
and Lycos.
Although, the company is in the early stages. In the past quarter, revenues
were $4.6 million. But it is enough to support a market capitalization
exceeding $8.5 billion.
StorageNetworks the IPO was priced at $27 and ended the day at $90-1/4 (the
high was $102). About 13 million shares traded hands. In all, the company
raised $243 million.
There was also nice action from Canada. The IPO was Exfo Electrical
Optical Engineering . Priced at $26, the stock rose
to $43-7/8 (the company raised $187 million). Volume was 12.1 million
shares.
The company develops equipment to test and monitor fiber optic equipment.
With the demand for fiber equipment soaring, so is the demand for Exfo’s
products.
True, the competition is stiff, such as from JDS Uniphase. Despite this,
the company has generated profits since 1985.
Another profitable company had a great performance last week. It was
Marvell Technology . The
IPO was priced at $15 and shot-up to a high of $63-5/16. The stock closed
at $56.
The company develops sophisticated integrated circuits for the data storage
market. However, the technology has proved to be versatile and is now being
integrated for broadband applications. In the past year, revenues were $81
million and profits were $13.1 million.
Finally, Stratos
entered the stratosphere. The IPO price was $21 and the stock soared to $50
— but it settled to $34-1/8.
Yep, the company is in the fiber optic industry. Basically, Stratos
develops communications subsystems for local and metropolitan networks.
Customers include such heavies as Cisco, Alcatel, and Lucent. Last year,
Stratos had revenues of $46.5 million and profits of $3.5 million.