trading begins in germany on friday
November 11, 1999
WSJE: Dual Listing Of Ebookers Will Begin
By SILVIA ASCARELLI
Staff Reporter
LONDON -- Shares in online travel company Ebookers PLC, Europe's answer to Expedia Inc., are expected to be priced at $18 (17.32 euros) each today, the top end of an already-boosted price range.
The initial public offering, which will trade on both the Nasdaq Stock Market and Germany's Neuer Markt, could raise as much as $70.4 million if the overallotment option is exercised. That would put it a few million dollars shy of the amount raised by Expedia. It is believed to be the 18th Internet offering in Europe but one of the first electronic-commerce deals linking business and consumers. Another European online travel company, Lastminute.com PLC, is expected to go public next year.
Trading begins today on Nasdaq and Friday in Germany.
The offering is many times oversubscribed, said a person familiar with the order book, with strong demand from both Europe and the U.S. The price range for orders was increased Tuesday to between $15 and $18 per American depositary receipt, from $13 to $15. Global coordinator for the offering in J.P. Morgan.
Demand for Expedia, a spin-off of Microsoft Corp., also was strong, and the shares were priced at $14, well above the indicated price range of $10 to $12. The shares took off at $37 and ended Nasdaq trading at $53.4375 on Wednesday.
Ebookers, previously a unit of Flightbookers PLC of the U.K., offers discount fares from the U.K., Germany and France. Both companies were started by Dinesh Dhamija, a former executive at Royal Nepal Airways. Mr. Dhamija and his wife, Tani, will own 70.2% of Ebookers following the IPO.
The online firm had consolidated revenue of GBP 5.4 million (8.4 million euros) in the first half of 1999, compared with full-year revenue of 8.5 million euros for all of 1998. It posted a loss of 1.5 million euros in the first six months of 1999 and, like virtually all Internet companies, warned in its prospectus that it doesn't intend to make a profit any time soon.
The decision to list on the Neuer Markt, rather than the London Stock Exchange, reflects in part the German high-growth segment's growing position as the pan-European growth market, a person familiar with the strategy said. About 30 non-German companies have gone public on the Neuer Markt, most of them this year.
It also was seen as a way of boosting the company's exposure in Germany and as a way to break away from its image as a U.K. company, that person said.
The Neuer Markt Index has been climbing steadily since late October following one in a series of sharp sell-offs. While the index climbed 1.6% Wednesday, two of the day's biggest decliners were Buch.de Internetstores AG, which went public Monday and now trades below its issue price, and rival e-bookseller Buecher.de AG. Both fell nearly 6%. |
