Rediff moves SEC for $75m Nasdaq IPO
walletwatch.com
REDIFF.COM India filed for an initial public offering in US on 19th May 2000.
The company, whose backers include Intel Corp and General Electric Co's GE Capital Services, is seeking to raise $75m by offering American depository shares (ADS), each representing one equity share, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
It plans to use proceeds to develop content, for advertising and general corporate purposes, including possible strategic investments, partnerships and acquisitions. The exact number of ADSs was not disclosed in the preliminary SEC prospectus.
Neither was the price range or other details, which are all expected in a future filing. The company has applied for a Nasdaq listing under the symbol REDF. The IPO is being handled by Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston and Robert Fleming. Rediff, headquartered in Mumbai, offers free services like online shopping and local language news editions written in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati. It also has a version of its website for the Indian community in the United States.
Monthly page views of its website (rediff.com) grew to about 70m in March 2000 from 13.2m in April 1999, the company said.
Rediff, which gets its revenues from online advertising and electronic online advertising and electronic commerce said: ?Our market position as one of the leading internet destinations focusing on India and the global Indian community offers advertisers access to a large and rapidly growing market of Indian internet users.?
Internet usage is still at an early stage in India, but usage is growing rapidly. Industry figures show that about one million people in the country used the internet last year out of a total population of 986.9 million, while the US has about 80.8 million Internet users with a population of 270.3 million, Rediff said.
The number of Indians on the web is expected to balloon to more than 17.2 million by 2004.
?We believe that one of the key factors driving this growth in India is the government of India's promotion of internet kiosks in smaller towns and villages and the proliferation of Internet cafes,? Rediff said in its SEC filing.
Source : ET
May 20, 2000 |
