Q. Is the long drought over for successful Internet IPOs?
A. A resounding “maybe.”
The online retailer of closeout goods prices at $13 a share, raising the
question of whether the long drought in Internet IPOs is coming to an end.
Still, the company raised $39 million, and though that’s nothing compared to
the heyday of Internet IPOs, it’s not exactly hay.
Salt Lake City-based Overstock, an e-commerce “closeout”
retailer offering discounted brand-name merchandise, sold 3 million shares
via co-managing underwriters WR Hambrecht + Co and Cantor Fitzgerald using WR
Hambrecht’s OpenIPO system, an electronic, auction-based method of conducting
initial public offerings.
The move follows other recent Internet IPOs, including that of DVD rental
company NetFlix last week and before that, e-payments
outfit PayPal . And there are said to be three more
Internet-related IPOs in the pipeline, including
travel operation Orbitz, eclipsing the one IPO in that sector last year.
NetFlix went public at $15 a share and closed Wednesday at $15.45. PayPal has been the real success story, going
public at $13 a share last February and closing Wednesday at $29.
Like the others, Overstock went public with “a history of significant
losses,” and in fact it lost $14.2 million last year on revenues of about $40
million, so investors are clearly betting that the Internet recession is
easing and this company and others will eventually make some real money.
Overstock’s product offerings include bed-and-bath goods, kitchenware,
watches, jewelry, electronics, sporting goods and designer accessories.
The IPO was done via an auction process in which people registered with WR
Hambrecht got to bid on the IPO and get access to it at the offering price.