NetSuite plans initial public offering
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(InfoWorld) - Hosted business software provider NetSuite hopes to raise $75 million in an initial public offering. The company, started in 1998 by two former Oracle executives, plans to use the money for working capital, to pay the balance of a line of credit, and possibly to acquire other businesses or technologies, the company said in a filing made on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. NetSuite, which targets its hosted CRM and ERP software at small and medium-size businesses, hasn't yet turned a profit. It reported revenue of $67.2 million and a net loss of $23.4 million for 2006 The company competes with giants such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft, SAP, and Intuit. NetSuite also competes with Oracle, even though Oracle's founder and chief executive officer Larry Ellison controls about 74 percent of NetSuite, individually and through his family members and an investment entity. NetSuite notes that Ellison will continue to have control over most matters that require stockholder approval, such as the appointment of the majority of directors of the company and potential acquisitions. His interests could differ from other stockholders, NetSuite noted. The SEC filing includes a long list of other risks to NetSuite's business in the future, including the likelihood of increased competition as more companies will probably enter the business. NetSuite will have to continue to convince medium-size businesses to use software as a service rather than buy software outright, and the company will have to upsell to those customers in order to grow the business, it said in the filing. NetSuite's success in the future also is dependent on companies that it relies on, including Oracle, which supplies database software that NetSuite uses, as well as telecommunications operators that deliver the service to end customers, the company said.
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Initial public offerings of stock are starting to look like an attractive exit strategy for startups, after a lull of three years. In an echo of the dot-com bubble, some companies are even going public before becoming profitable.
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Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.com is making final preparations for an initial public offering of shares on the Hong Kong stock exchange, set for Nov. 6. But most of the proceeds will go to existing shareholders rather than into the company&#39;s coffers to fund future acquisitions and other plans.Alibaba&#39;s prospectus said the listing price would be set within a range between HK$12 (US$1.55) to HK$13.50 per share. While the final pricing has not yet been announced, Dow Jones Newswires reported that the listing price had been set at the very top of that range.Nearly 859 million shares -- accounting for 17 percent of Alibaba&#39;s shares -- will be offered during the IPO, including 227 million shares owned by the company. The balance of the shares on offer are held by existing shareholders.&#160;The IPO&#160;attracted US$150 billion in orders from institutional investors and HK$453 billion in orders from individuals, making it &quot;the biggest offering in Hong Kong&#39;s IPO history,&quot; according to the Dow Jones report.Out of the HK$11.6 billion expected to be raised during the IPO about HK$3 billion (US$387 million) will go to Alibaba, which plans to use most of the money for acquisitions and to develop new technologies.Alibaba is one of China&#39;s oldest and most successful Internet companies, running a business-to-business trading portal under the Alibaba.com name, an online payment service, and China&#39;s most popular auction site, called Taobao.com. But while other Chinese Internet companies cashed in on investor enthusiasm for Internet stocks and China&#39;s growing market with listings in Hong Kong and New York, Alibaba -- which generated 73 percent of its revenue from outside China during the first half of 2007 -- remained privately held.A 2005 deal with Yahoo took some pressure off Alibaba to go public.&#160;Yahoo invested US$1 billion in Alibaba&#160;in return for a 40 percent stake in the company, and transferred control of its Chinese operations to Alibaba. Approximately $750 million of the proceeds from that deal went to shareholders, allowing early investors in the company to take a return on their investments.Yahoo&#39;s investment in Alibaba will likely increase, with the company expected to invest a further US$100 million through the IPO.&#160;
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Parmalat Finanziaria SpA said Tuesday it is preparing a stock offering, a key step as it seeks to emerge as a new company from a multibillion fraud scandal.
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DreamWorks Animation SKG on Tuesday set its planned initial public offering of stock at 29 million common shares at an estimated price of $23 to $25 per share.
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NetSol Technologies Inc. ("NetSol") (NASDAQ: NTWK), a multinational provider of enterprise software and IT services to the financial services industry, plans to announce its second quarter and first half fiscal year 2007 financial results after the close of the market on Monday, February 12, 2007.
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NetSuite on Wednesday set the initial price of its stock at $26, greatly exceeding its original estimate.
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Private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. is planning an initial public offering, media reports said on Thursday.
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NetSuiteâs initial public offering raised $185.4 million, close to double the amount the company originally forecast the I.P.O. would generate.
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Blackstone Group's  initial public offering is seeing heavy demand from investors vying for shares of the biggest U.S. IPO in five years, which is expected to price on Thursday.
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Carlyle Group , a U.S. private equity firm, is considering a stock market listing similar to last week's initial public offering by rival Blackstone , Dow Jones Newswires reported on Wednesday.
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Software maker Infosys Technologies Ltd. was set to become the first Indian company to join an elite Nasdaq grouping when the U.S. stock exchange opens for trading Monday.
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SaaS (software as a service) platform vendor NetSuite&#160;has released SuiteBundler, a tool its partner ISVs and VARs can use to create reusable applications for verticals.&quot;It&#39;s more important for our partners than it is for NetSuite,&quot; NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson said of the release, which provides a wizard-like interface for combining assets built on the NetSuite platform. It also includes distribution and installation tools and access to a repository of these &quot;SuiteBundles.&quot;Software development firm EBS-RAD LLC, based in Tampa, Florida, created a custom NetSuite app, i-Seaports Management, for its customer, Harbour Mastery. That firm in turn will market the software to seaports and marinas around the world, said EBS-RAD CEO George Walters.&quot;We&#39;re effectively making it very easy for services companies to get into the software business,&quot; Nelson said.Bundles have been created for a number of other verticals, including agricultural equipment dealerships, retail point-of-sale, and wholesale electronics distribution, according to the company.NetSuite&#39;s announcement drew a cautious nod from one industry observer Wednesday. &quot;At a 60,000 foot view, it seems like a good thing,&quot; said Michael Speyer, a Forrester Research senior analyst covering SMB&#160;and IT distribution issues. &quot;Especially for the larger midmarket clients. They&#39;re going to resist adopting apps that aren&#39;t customizable to their own existing processes.&quot;That makes sense because NetSuite has specifically targeted such customers. &quot;We think the midmarket is the huge opportunity,&quot; Nelson said. &quot;We believe NetSuite will be the SAP of the midmarket.&quot;But Speyer sounded a note of skepticism against such a lofty goal. &quot;Well, SAP is pretty firmly in the midmarket now,&quot; he said, noting offerings like Business All-in-One and Business One. &quot;So they are running head-on into SAP.&quot;NetSuite&#39;s approach to extending its SaaS platform stands in contrast to competitor Salesforce.com, which has aggressively promoted its programming language and development platform for creating new enterprise apps.&quot;Our environment is all about extending our applications,&quot; Nelson said. &quot;The mid-market doesn&#39;t want to build applications. They want to run businesses. Enterprises? They&#39;ll build applications all day.&quot;Nelson said one possible enterprise use of SuiteBuilder lies in application testing. NetSuite customers could try out new custom combinations in sandboxes before deploying them, he said.NetSuite previously announced it intends to issue an IPO. Earlier this year, it provided access to its services through the Apple iPhone.
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NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO  - Google Inc. appeared set  to start trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, after the Web's  No. 1 search engine asked regulators for final approval to  price its closely watched initial public offering.
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(InfoWorld) - NetSuite, the other hosted CRM company, laid out version 2007.0 this week of its CRM, ERP, and PRM (partner relationship management) SaaS (software as a service) solution. The company unveiled NetSuite Assistants, a refinement of its current ERP solution that will make setup, data import, and ERP back-office management simpler, according to the company. Services within the Assistants suite include a setup assistant, a data import assistant, and a graphical transaction form assistant. Matrix Item Assistant will now allow for inventory tracking of multivariant products. NetSuite Global CRM and PRM adds the ability to manage orders, forecasts, quotas, and commissions on a per-country basis in local currency. Also included is a dashboard that can aggregate global information from across an organization into a single, consolidated view. An upgraded analytics capability, SuiteAnalytics, will add scorecards and the ability to include Excel-like customized formulas within a dashboard. As extensive as the additional functionality to the NetSuite suite is, perhaps the most noticeable part of the company's SaaS news was what wasn't announced. Unlike its archrival, Salesforce.com, NetSuite steered clear of discussing an integration platform technology, a programming language capability, or a program to add third-party applications such as Salesforce.com's AppExchange.Â  While NetSuite does have its own integration and customization technology, SuiteFlex, Craig Sullivan, vice president of international products, said NetSuite's strategy is to differentiate itself from competitors by giving companies all their business operations in a single application. "We understand it is important to integrate with other applications, especially when first deploying NetSuite, and we have those capabilities," Sullivan said. SuiteFlex includes a Web services architecture to integrate third-party applications. Sullivan added that users can configure and customize NetSuite through the UI and point-and-click technology rather than being code based. NetSuite 2007 will be rolled out to its current customers from June through August and starts at $499 per month, plus $99 for each user per month.
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NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Lazard on Monday confirmed the possibility of an initial public offering filing, but cautioned that it won&#39;t do so &quot;if it is not in the best interest of the firm and its partners.
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Google IPO Bidding Opens  Google's IPO bidding is officially open. Google and its underwriters expect to open the auction for the shares of Google&rsquo;s Class A common stock at 9:00 a.m. EST (press time) on Friday, August 13, 2004. Google bidders must have obtained a bidder ID from ipo.google.com if you ...