Classmates cancels IPO

 

 

Parent company of Classmates.com, United Online has pulled its S-1 registration statement (the filing required to go public), citing “current market conditions would not be in the best interests of its stockholders.

Classmates.com has already received some recent bad publicity with the FTC looking into the company’s practice of auto-renewing paid subscribers without their explicit consent.

Testing the waters for a Classmates.com IPO is going to cost United Online between $4.5-$5.5 million in their fourth quarter - mostly fees they paid to investment bankers in preparation for an IPO. United Online originally acquired Classmates.com for $100 million in 2004.

........................................................................................................................ 

Alibaba.com to be vlaued at $7.8 billion after IPO

 

 

Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba.com is looking to raise HK$10.3 billion ($1.3 billion) from its IPO according to documents released to potential investors today. The IPO will value Alibaba.com at up to $7.8 billion.

Alibaba.com Ltd. and Alibaba.com Corp. will sell a combined 858.9 million shares (17%) in Alibaba.com with Yahoo, currently a 40% share holder in the Alibaba Group buying HK$776 million of the IPO shares, resulting in 8.2% ownership of Alibaba.com Ltd, the newly listed IPO entity.

The IPO will see Alibaba.com break away from the Alibaba Group, the China based holding company that owns Alipay, Taabao.com and Yahoo China.

........................................................................................................................ 

Constant Contact raises $107 million in IPO

 

 

Constant Contact made a spectacular debut at its IPO yesterday.  The Waltham, MA-based direct marketing email platform raised $107.2M in its IPO, with shares opening at $16 per share, well above the $12-$14 range and then going past $30. At just $16, its market cap was around $433M.

As we had reported, we are a Constant Contact users and would recommend it but it does seem like yesterday's software and there are a number of free email marketing applications coming up that would compete.

The market must be looking at Constant Contact's dramatic revenue increase over the past year. For fiscal 2006, revenue was $27.6M and its net loss was $7.8M.

In the six months ended June 30, 2007 revenue was $21.1M and its net loss was $5.5M. It will trade on the Nasdaq as CTCT.

Constant Contact had raised $38.8M from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Venture Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Hudson Venture Partners, Greylock Partner, and others.

........................................................................................................................