Following a much dragged-out process, quite a few postponements, and an unflattering report in “Forbes” magazine, it appears that Shopping.com’s IPO is finally off to a good start. The company submitted its revised prospectus to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today, raising the price range for the issue from $14-16 to $16-18. Shopping.com also slightly increased the number of shares to be issued from 5 million to 5.06 million, while the number of shares to be offered for sale by Shopping.com’s shareholders will be reduced accordingly.
Assuming that pricing puts the price at $17, in the middle of the new price range, Shopping.com will raise $116.8 million, $86 million of which it will bank. The remaining $31 million will go to the shareholders taking part in the offer for sale. Shopping.com will give its underwriters Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, and Piper Jaffray an option to buy an additional 1.03 million shares, which, if exercised, would increase the amount raised by $17.5 million.
It is believed that Shopping.com’s pricing will be completed tomorrow. The following day, on Wednesday, trading in the company share on Nasdaq will begin. The company’s ticker symbol will be SHOP. The company’s new price range gives it an average company value of $473 million, after money. If the issue goes as expected, it will be the sixth Nasdaq IPO by an Israeli company this year. Including the Shopping.com IPO, Nasdaq issues, including secondary issues, by Israeli companies have raised an aggregate of $1.12 billion.
Among the Shopping.com shareholders expected to sell part of their holdings are cofounder Nahum Sharfman, who will sell some of his holdings in the company for $1.9 million, leaving him with a 2.2% stake; Internet provider America Online (AOL), which will sell its entire 1.2% stake for $4.6 million; and UBS (SWX: UBS), which will also sell its entire stake for $4.6 million.
Shopping.com operates the fourth largest comparison shopping website, after Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), and e-Bay (Nasdaq: EBAY). The company’s revenue rose 1.7% to $21.4 million in the second quarter of the year, compared with the first quarter.
Published by Globes [online] -l www.globes.co.il - on October 25, 2003