Shopping.com raises $124 million in IPO
On its first day of public trading yesterday, Shopping.com raised $124 million, as about 6.9 million shares sold at a closing price of $18. Proceeds available to the company before expenses amounted to $84.7 million, which doesn’t include the $30.3 million worth of shares sold by individual shareholders.
The strong IPO pointed to the strength of the online comparison shopping market, industry experts say. At mid-day today, Shopping.com’s per-share price had climbed more than 50% to over $27, bringing its market value to $186 million. "They’ve had a great IPO, and with their stock up 50% today it feeds right to the strength of this industgry," says Tamim Mourad, CEO of competitor PriceGrabber.com.
Shopping.com, which is still in an IPO quite period for about another 3 weeks, said in its IPO prospectus that it will use the proceeds for working capital and that it may use some of the capital to acquire or invest in businesses, products and technology. It said it had not yet allocated specific amounts to any of these areas.
Shopping.com, which was formed from the merger of DealTime.com and epinions.com, reported revenue of $42.34 million for the six months ended June 30, up 70% from $24.97 in the year-earlier period. Net income for the same periods, however, rose slightly to $3.85 million from $3.79 million due to increased spending on sales and market and other operations.
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