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Posts Tagged ‘ipo rumors’

Good News And Bad News On IPO Front

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is some good insights from Chris O´brien at SiliconBeat.

“This morning my inbox contained the latest report from Renaissance Capital. It has some hopeful news about IPOs, but not necessarily for Silicon Valley.

First, the good news: ”After an uptick in filing activity, there are 67 companies in the active IPO pipeline, up from 29 in March 2009.”

As far as Silicon Valley is concerned, that’s about as far as the good news goes. Now, here’s the bad news.

According to Renaissance:

“Today, the tech, healthcare and retail growth stories that have driven past market revivals have been conspicuously absent from the latest wave of  IPO hopefuls.  This makes sense, given the historic consumer shut-down and the anti-business and investment rhetoric emanating from Washington.  In their place, there is a pool of unusual candidates shaped by an era of cheap credit and  the unprecedented mortgage crisis that followed.  At least for the near term, it appears that the IPO market will be dominated by opportunistic investment vehicles and businesses from the mid-decade buyout bubble.”

And his post concludes:

Currently, there are seven venture-backed companies in the IPO pipeline. Could there be more? Renaissance gives a round up of likely suspects:

“Besides the social networking giants Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, there have been several other rumored IPO candidates from the VC community as the market began to recover in early March.  Near-term, we expect the majority of new venture-backed IPO filings to come from the technology and alternative energy sectors.  Potential IPO prospects from each of these industries include online games company Zynga, ethernet network equipment provider Force10 and property & casualty software maker Guidewire in the technology sector, and smart grid company Silver Spring, solar panel maker Solyndra and electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors in alternative energy.”

Read the full article here.

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More IPO gossip, new prospects include: Greenplum, LinkedIn, Pacific Biosciences and Zynga

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Market research, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Here is a recent article from CNN.

“If you have been an investor in technology IPOs in recent months you’ve done well.

Starting in April, and really gathering momentum this summer, there has been a slew of tech companies that leapt through the public market window including Changyou (CYOU), Rosetta Stone (RST), OpenTable (OPEN), and most recently Emdeon (EM).”

The article continues,

“Right now in Silicon Valley, investment bankers are busy making the rounds of promising portfolio companies trying to convince them of the wisdom of an IPO. There is always the question of what kind of company can – or should – go public. During the last wave of tech IPOs, after the dotcom bust, the rule of thumb was that firms with $100 million in revenue and profitability were IPO candidates.

Investment bankers on the prowl in Silicon Valley

Now, according to one prominent venture capitalist who asked to remain anonymous, investment bankers are telling him, “If a company can show revenue of $15 million per quarter, a good business model – and if not profitability, a path to profits – they can deliver an oversubscribed offering.” (One wonders wonder whether these simply are investment bankers who have had nothing to do for the last 12 months, trying to make their bonus figures.)

Venture capitalists have not had much to be happy about, either. It wasn’t just IPOs, but acquisitions that came to a screeching halt during the recession. Both of these groups desperately want the IPO window to stay open, and so far it is.”

And concludes,

“In Google’s day it was bulge-bracket investment banks – Morgan Stanley (MS), CSFB (CS), Goldman (GS), Lehman Bros or no one. The economics of the banks (characterized as going “down-market” to even do $500 million IPOs) required bigger deals. Today’s deals, with their much more modest size, are better tailored for the boutique banks – Thomas Weisel Partners, Jeffries, JMP Securities, Piper Jaffray, and the like. These are the banks pounding the streets in Silicon Valley the hardest.

Could it all end badly? Of course, and usually it does when the rush toward IPOs at some point sends half-baked companies into the public markets and they tank. But between now and then we are likely to see a group of very high quality tech companies look to go public – think Greenplum, LinkedIn, Pacific Biosciences and Zynga among many others.

For those investors with the stomach, it might not get much better.”

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Facebook Names Genentech Veteran as CFO – IPO plans may be looming

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, FaceBook, Investments, Market research, Social Networks, Technology, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As Facebook secured some investments earlier this year, and invested it towards international growth, the latest news spark renewed IPO rumors.

Of course, no one knows, but the hiring of a CFO from a larger corporation is nothing you do unless you have greater plans. First and foremost, it costs you a bunch of money, secondly, the demands this person has on you by his experience will force the structure needed upon you.

The biggest challenge remains though – to create profitability.

Here is a quoted article from BusinessWeek.

“In April, when Facebook announced the departure of Chief Financial Officer Gideon Yu, the social network said it would look for a replacement “with public company experience.” Facebook found what it was seeking in David Ebersman, a 15-year veteran of biotech pioneer Genentech (DNA).

“David [Ebersman] worked at one of the most innovative and respected [companies] in the world, so he brings a lot to the table when it comes to our efforts to build a lasting, important company,” Facebook spokesman Larry Yu says of the appointment, announced on June 29.

Ebersman’s appointment keeps alive speculation over whether and how soon the world’s biggest social network is headed for an initial public share sale. “We have no plans to go public,” says spokesman Larry Yu. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was quoted in May saying an IPO remains “a few years out.”

Ebersman, 38, served as Genentech’s CFO for the four years leading up to its $46.8 billion sale to drug giant Roche Holding (ROG) in May. In Facebook’s press release, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that under Ebersman, Genentech’s revenue tripled. Zuckerberg envisions high growth for his company as well, saying sales will rise 70% this year. (eMarketer has projected that Facebook’s revenue will grow 20% this year, to $300 million.)”

Read the full article here.

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