IPO Profile: Daiwa Computer Co.
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Tokyo, Sept. 13 (Jiji Press)--Computer system and software developer Daiwa Computer Co.  will make its stock market debut on the Jasdaq Securities Exchange on Sept. 29.
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Lazard, the financial advisory boutique, filed for an initial public offering that is expected to command a valuation of around $3 billion.
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Three years after being bought by EMC, VMware is going public.Â EMC announced plans Wednesday to offer 10 percent of its virtualization software subsidiary in an initial public offering (IPO).
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Montalvo Systems has a multi-core chip, but not all of the cores are the same. That in part explains why investors have put money into it.
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Internet photo service Shutterfly  Inc. on Thursday set its planned initial public offering at 5.8  million shares at an estimated price of $13 to $15 each.
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(InfoWorld) - CDW is the latest IT company keen to go private, a move that could give the large U.S. computer reseller the freedom to tinker with its business and growth plans without having to spell out those intentions every quarter for investors. In recent months in deals worth billions of dollars, private equity firms have come to the fore as future homes for technology companies, includingÂ electronic payments and commerce specialist First DataÂ andÂ customer information management company Acxiom. CDW entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by private-equity investment firm MDP (Madison Dearborn Partners) for $7.3 billion, the companies confirmed late Tuesday. Subject to shareholder approval and other closing conditions, the parties hope to complete the deal by the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of this year. Already, Michael Krasny, CDW's largest stockholder who controls around 22 percent of the company, has agreed to vote his shares in favor of the acquisition, according to John Edwardson, CDW chairman and CEO. Krasny is CDW's founder and chairman emeritus. Edwardson said Wednesday that a private-equity group made an unsolicited approach to CDW's board of directors, leading them to go through an evaluation process with several potential buyers. MDP offered the highest bid for the company. Because that process wasn't public, CDW will now actively solicit bids from other interested parties to see if they can top MDP's offer, he added. The so-called "go-shop" period should last 30 days. "This represents the next chapter for us," Edwardson said on a Wednesday conference call. "Changes are constant for us." CDW resells computers, software, and networking equipment from the likes of Acer, Apple, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Sony, and Symantec to U.S. and Canadian SMBs, governments, schools, and some enterprise customers. CDW does some customization of the technologies it resells and also provides a range of services. One of the company's prime competitors is Dell, which has begun to veer away from its direct sales credo, and also other indirect channel players. At the same time, given CDW's size, smaller resellers may choose to buy equipment and software from the larger player and then provide it to customers. CDW's business model has been to compete aggressively on price, according to Leslie Rosenberg, research manager, network channels and alliances at IDC, and she doesn't expect that to change once the reseller becomes a private entity. She views CDW's purchase last year of high-end systems integrator Berbee as an interesting and somewhat puzzling development. CDW has yet to integrate Berbee into its operations, keeping it more as a separate operation, and Rosenberg wonders what the reseller's long-term plans are for that business. MDP is committed to CDW's existing strategies, Edwardson said. In an 8-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, CDW included a coworker FAQ, which listed some of those objectives, notably becoming a $10 billion company in revenue by 2008 and extending the Berbee business on a national scale. Once the deal is final, MDP intends to keep the current CDW management team intact, Edwardson said. "I plan to stick around," he wrote in a Tuesday e-mail message to CDW staff. Founded in 1984, CDW went public in 1993. The company employs over 5,600 staff and reported revenue of $6.8 billion in 2006. Edwardson doesn't expect any job reductions once CDW becomes a private company.
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Internet advertising firm Fastclick Inc. registered Wednesday for an initial public offering of up to $92 million in common stock, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Electric Power Development Co., a former state-run utility, said Friday it is planning an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October, a deal that could be the country's biggest new stock listing in six years.
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Internet photo service Shutterfly   Inc. on Thursday set its planned initial public offering at 5.8   million shares at an estimated price of $13 to $15 each.
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(InfoWorld) - The specter of moderate global IT growth continues to hang over vendors' financial news, which this week includes IBM's stock buyback, distributorÂ CDW's plan to go private, andÂ layoff news from Motorola. These moves are examples of how tech companies are dealing with global IT growth that most analysts say will be moderate -- somewhere in the 6 percent to 7 percent range. That's not a bad growth rate for a mature industry but nowhere near the double-digit growth rates that IT saw in the late 1990s. In this climate, organic sales alone are often not enough to achieve the kind of growth that inspires investors and instills confidence in volume buyers. The types of moves announced this week often provide temporary excitement but leave questions about long-term consequences. IBM announced Tuesday it completed part of its previously announced stock buyback program, purchasing 118.8 million shares for $105.18 per share. That equals about $12.5 billion. IBM shares closed the day of the announcement at $105.91, up by $0.73. One reason investors like this sort of news is that with fewer outstanding shares on the market, companies find it easier to report robust per share growth. The long-term question, though, is whether companies would be better off spending money on product development, equipment, acquisitions, or other investments. IBM is considered an R&D leader, so in this case, the stock purchase was not criticized. Another way of dealing with the pressure of having to show steady growth quarter after quarter is to simply get out of the public stock market altogether. CDW's announcement this week that it entered into a pact to be acquired by private-equity investment firm Madison Dearborn PartnersÂ for $7.3 billion is one such move. With the announcement, on Tuesday, CDW followed in the footsteps of similar moves to go private by companies, such as electronic payments companyÂ First DataÂ and customer information management software developerÂ Acxiom. The advantage of going private is that it's easier to focus on long-term strategy when company managers have to deal with a small cadre of investors. But new owners sometimes strip company assets and sell them off or enact drastic cost cutting measures. To assuage customers (and employees) John Edwardson, CDW chairman and CEO, said in a conference call Wednesday that he didn't expect layoffs and that CDW management would stick around. CDW shares jumped to $83.11 on the day of the announcement, up from $75.56 the day earlier. Cost cuts are another way of dealing with a tight market and falling profits. On Wednesday, Motorola said it will lay off 4,000 workers, expanding previous plans for layoffs. The company, which lost money last quarter, said the latest move would save $600 million annually. While investors often applaud cost control measures, staff reductions ultimately do nothing for the central issue facing tech companies: product development and marketing. Addressing this issue Wednesday in an investors meeting, CEO Ed Zander said the company willÂ increase profits by developing an array of multimedia mobile devices rather than rely on single blockbuster products like its Razr phones. Investors took a "show-me" stance. Company shares lost ground on the day of the announcements. Dell fared better after it announced, late Thursday, thatÂ it will cut its 78,800-strong workforce by 10 percent. Within 30 minutes of the announcement, made as part of its quarterly report, Dell shares jumped in after-hours trading by $1.63. Dell profits have slipped over the past year, and it is still embroiled in an accounting inquiry, but investors have applauded cost-cutting moves by Dell over the last few months, especially because they have been accompanied by complementary plans to break with tradition and start selling through retail.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard kicked off a push into Japan's consumer PC market on Tuesday after being absent from the space for about four years. "We believe the opportunity is right," said Takafumi Oka, president of Hewlett-Packard Japan at a Tokyo news conference. "This will be an important milestone in our history." On Tuesday the company launched three new desktops and a laptop. It began marketing laptop PCs to consumers about six months ago, but the launch represents the start of a more serious attack on the home turf of local market leaders like Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba, and Sony. HP is focusing its efforts on a direct sales model through the Internet and telephone. Additionally it will open three mini-stores inside major electronics shops in Tokyo where prospective customers will be able to try out the PCs, talk with HP representatives and place orders. Two of the stores will open on Wednesday and the third on Friday. HP's machines will be offered built-to-order and produced at an existing HP factory in Tokyo. That makes Japan the first market outside of the U.S. to have a local assembly plant for custom-ordered PCs, said Junichi Yamashita, who heads HP Japan's mobile and consumer business. As a result consumers will be able to get their PCs five days after ordering, he said. HP Japan left the consumer market four years ago after it merged with Compaq and decided to concentrate on enterprise customers in Japan. "The difference this time is that we have a better understanding we hope of the kinds of products you have to deliver to the Japanese market," said Richard Walker, vice president and general manager of HP in an interview with IDG News Service. "Also we're talking a different route to market this time. Previously we tried retail and quite honestly got killed." The direct sales model should make things different this time around, he said. "As I heard the presentation I got the feeling that HP is now getting serious about Japan," said Shunsuke Yoshizawa, head of AMD's Japanese marketing unit, at the news conference. Yoshizawa said Japanese consumers tend to be "very picky" when it comes to buying a PC and putting their trust in a brand. The company wouldn't name a specific goal for its reentry into the consumer market but said it hopes to achieve a double-digit market share. Doing so would make it a major player in the Japan consumer market. In the third quarter of 2006, the latest period for which figures are available, only four PC makers enjoyed a double-digit share of the entire PC market, according to IDC. NEC led the market with a 20.8 percent share, second was Fujitsu at 18.6 percent, third was Dell with a 13.5 percent share and fourth was Toshiba at 10.3 percent.
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National Thermal Power Corporationâs (NTPCâs) initial public offering (IPO) opened to a thumping response today, and was subscribed almost four times.
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After much hype ahead of its initial public offering, Clearwire  (CLWR) gained value early but then lost its gains in its first day of public trading March 8. The Kirkland, [Wash.] company raised $600 million and priced shares at the high end of expectations in spite of a jittery market.
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You don't have to be Google to challenge the way Wall Street manages initial public offerings. A little southwest Virginia biotechnology company has just gone public using the same innovative "open IPO" process as Google.
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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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Shares of Clearwire Corp., a wireless Internet services provider founded by cellular phone pioneer Craig McCaw, edged up about 2 percent Thursday after the company raised $600 million in its initial public stock offering. The IPO had valued the entire company at more than $4 billion.
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Storage appliance IPO a-go-go Data Domain stock soared 66 per cent to $24.95 on its first day of trading as a public company, Wednesday.â¦