Ask Jeeves Files to Raise $41.4 Mln Through Initial Stock Sale
Washington, April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Ask Jeeves Inc., which operates an Internet search service that lets people ask questions in plain English, filed to raise as much as $41.4 million through an initial stock sale.
Internet users seeking information on the World Wide Web can ask questions at the company's site and receive a response pointing to relevant Internet pages that may provide the answer.
Ask Jeeves answered more than one million questions a day in April, and had more than 1.9 million unique users in March, up from 425,000 in September, the filing said.
''We believe that our services connect users to their products and services in a more targeted way than other services on the Internet, thereby better unlocking the power of electronic commerce,'' the company said in its filing.
Based near San Francisco in Berkeley, California, Ask Jeeves filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the sale of common shares. The company didn't disclose how many shares it plans to sell or how much it hopes to get for them.
Those details will be included in a future filing. The $41.4 million estimate for the IPO proceeds was given to calculate an SEC filing fee.
Helping Internet users find information on the World Wide Web has become an attractive business for investors, as more people go online. Shares in Internet search-directory company Yahoo Inc. have risen more than five-fold during the past 52 weeks, while shares in Lycos Inc. have more than tripled during the same period.
Ask Jeeves said it would use proceeds from the IPO for general corporate purposes, including working capital, expenditures for the growth and expansion of its business and building its brand both online and off-line. Ask Jeeves said it also may use some money for product development and possible acquisitions.
Robert Wrubel, 38, has served as the company's chief executive since November 1998. Prior to joining Ask Jeeves, he worked as an executive at Knowledge Adventure Inc., an educational software company.
Benjamin Rosen, the chairman of Compaq Computer Corp., serves on the board at Ask Jeeves. CPQ Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Compaq, currently holds a 13.2 percent stake in Ask Jeeves.
Shares will be marketed through an underwriting group led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. Ask Jeeves has applied to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ''ASKJ.''
(Courtesy: Bloomberg-- Siobhan Hughes and Miles Weiss) |
