SmartBargains pulls back on planned IPO
Less than a month after replacing CEO Carl Rosendorf with the appointment of board member Jim Held as acting CEO, SmartBargains Inc. has pulled back from a planned IPO. The company announced it has filed to withdraw its registration statement for an initial public offering, for which it originally filed papers last July. No date for the IPO had been announced. In its announcement, the company cited “recent management changes, including the appointment of an active chief executive officer.” SmartBargains didn’t return calls asking for comment.
In its earlier announcement that Held would take on the job of acting CEO, SmartBargains said Rosendorf would retain a seat on the board and act as an advisor to the company.
"It`s virtually impossible to have a successful IPO unless you have the whole management team filled out," observes Mary Brett Whitfield, director of the E-Retail Intelligence Program at consultants Retail Forward Inc. Whitfield says the IPO could have been pulled as the result of the vacancy at the top of the management team along with the possibility the retailer didn`t have the financial performance it would want to have when going into an IPO. "We don`t know what their internal goals for the holiday season were, but you could speculate that with the CEO gone and pulling the IPO, maybe they didn`t meet them," she adds.
Held, a 20-year veteran of the retail industry, is president of JPBK Consulting and oversees his own charitable foundation. He joined the board last year. He previously served as CEO of Home Shopping Network, CEO of Adrienne Vittidini Inc and executive vice president of QVC Inc.
SmartBargains’ revenue rose from $75.8 million in 2003 to $92.2 million in 2004, but the 4-year-old company has yet to be profitable. Losses narrowed from $10.7 million in 2003 to $1.4 million in 2004.
Back...
