Investors, whether they are big institutions or day traders, are uncertain
about chasing tech stocks higher, even in the face of robust first-quarter
earnings. This skepticism means that IPOs have been postponed and
withdrawn.
Netease.com, a Chinese Web site offering a number of online services, has
postponed its IPO. Techies, Linuxcare, Annuncio Software, and Zefer have
also withdrawn their IPOs.
Despite this, there is still action in the IPO market. A couple IPOs did
see the light of day this week, although we haven’t seen
such a weak performance in months.
On Wednesday, Cambridge, England-headquartered Autonomy Corp (AUTN) listed
2.2 million shares at $124 per share. It had been trading on the
pan-European high-tech Easdaq in Brussels. By Friday, its Nasdaq price was
119-1/8.
Autonomy’s bayesian-based software reads unstructured documents (i.e., Lotus
Notes, emails, etc.) and ranks main ideas, as well as inserts hyperlinks to
related subjects. It has worldwide offices, including the U.S., Australia,
Europe and Africa.
Autonomy was the winner of “The 1999 Internet World Annual Industry
Award-Workgroup Software Category” at the Spring Internet World ’99. Some
of its customers include the Department of Defense, Lucent Technologies, and
Morgan Stanley.
Autonomy recently announced that Tesco, the biggest e-grocer in the world,
will use Autonomy’s technology to create “personal shopping assistants” on
Tesco’s online shopping service. This will provide personalized service to
customers using either personal computers or mobile phones.
The lead underwriter was Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown.
The other IPO was on Friday. Sequoia Software gained 26 percent over its
offering price of $8. The company’s shares closed at 10 1/16. They raised
over $33 million by selling 4.2 million shares (basically, a small amount).
Sequoia Software is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland. Their XML
Portal Server (XPS), based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), allows
sharing of information among customers, employers, and suppliers in
real-time. Their overseas operations are based in Dublin, Ireland.
Sequoia’s applications are found in the manufacturing, healthcare, financial
services, insurance, and telecommunications industries. Last year, Deloitte
& Touche recognized Sequoia as one of the fastest growing technology
companies in the nation. But in this environment, it wasn’t enough to juice
the IPO.
Lehman Brothers was the lead underwriter.
