AltaVista to postpone IPO
04/14 18:29
By Andrea Orr
PALO ALTO, Calif., April 14 (Reuters) - The popular Internet portal AltaVista Co decided late Friday to postpone an initial public offering of its shares set for early next week, saying it was a very bad time to try to drum up investor interest.
The company, which had been planning to offer 14.8 million shares to the public in a deal valued at more than $255 million, gave no indication when it might try to reschedule the offering, saying only that it would have to wait the market out.
AltaVista joins a series of other companies that have canceled IPOs because of depressed market conditions. But because AltaVista is larger and more established than many of the others, its decision stands out as a sign of more bad news for the markets and the high-tech sector.
Even after trading concluded Friday with both NASDAQ and the Dow Jones Industrial Average registering their biggest one-day point declines ever, many analysts were predicting AltaVista would go ahead with its IPO.
"It may only go up several points instead of doubling, but it's still a strong deal," said John Fitzgibbon of RedHerring.com. "The company's got a lot going for it. If it doesn't get priced, you can essentially pack it up and go the the Bahamas for the spring."
AltaVista, one of the most visited sites on the Internet, had revenues of $50.9 million in the three month period ended Jan. 31, and has been rapidly growing its audience through a subsidiary company that offers free Internet access.
Since last summer, AltaVista had been majority-owned by the successful Internet incubator CMGI Inc (CMGI), which aggressively marketed the site and worked to transform it from a bare-bones search engine to a major commercial portal.
In the latest three month period ended in January, it had losses of more than $272 million.
Although AltaVista was one of the original Internet search engines, it has had bad timing with investors. It first tried to go public back in 1996, in a deal that was also canceled because of weak market conditions.
It was later acquired by Compaq Computer Corp (CPQ), which spun it off last year.
REUTERS |
