"We are a leading provider of Internet solutions for the sourcing, management and delivery of professional services. Professional services include consulting, financial services, medicine, law, engineering, advertising and other industries in which knowledge and information, or intellectual capital, are an important element of the services. Our Internet software and business portal are designed to automate the core business processes of professional services organizations, professional services providers within enterprises, and small businesses and individual professionals."
niku.com
Slated to go public week of Feb 28:
ipo.com
IPO filing summaries:
hoovers.com
(The figure of $0 shown for 1999 revenue on the above page seems incorrect. Click Financials on that page and you'll see revenue for 1999)
ipo.com
Lots of links on the media page on their website:
niku.com
of which these were especially useful:
redherring.com
redherring.com
forbes.com
upside.com
(follow the links in the above article for entertaining background articles in Upside on founder/CEO Dibachi's earlier venture, Diba)
Management:
niku.com
Some untutored thoughts from me:
Pros: 1) Other IPOs that week, such as PALM, HOMG, ASIA and OPUS (which competes with them in some areas), may take some of the heat off, especially if they happen to go out on the same day. 2) Their name, and somewhat unglamourous product offerings - Professional Services Automation (PSA) - may keep the profile low. 3) Customers and revenue. 4) Already hooked in to the ASP delivery model via partners such as USIX. 5) The PSA field is new and seems wide open. 6) No publically traded pure-play competitors. - they are already strongly associated with the sector they are in. 7) Management team is in place and doesn't look like it has been rapidly thrown together just for the IPO (which is the impression I got looking at OPUS).
Cons: 1) May get hyped up in the press which would push up its trading price, especially because CEO Dibachi is an interesting character (founded Diba, used to hang out with Larry Ellison, etc). 2) It may be priced aggressively by Goldman which would also push up its trading price. 3) Potential competition from large enterprise software vendors, such as SAP.
One privately held competitor to compare it with is Evolve Software ( evolveinc.com ).
I'm an IPO value investor: I am primarily interested in high quality IPOs which, because they are overlooked or overshadowed, present buying opportunities in the first few weeks of trading. So I'd hope this doesn't get a 'red hot' rating at Red Herring, or mentioned on CNN like FMKT was. That hype can basically kill these IPO stocks as reasonably buys for individual investors.
Anyone got any idea about market cap target for this? |
