EPAY (Bottomline Technologies)
I'm guessing a lot of people on this thread bought EPAY on Friday when it IPO'd.
Here's the scoop on EPAY:
From 2/15/99 Barrons,
Many IPOs, especially Internet-related deals, offer investors little more than hope for
glorious profits at some time in an undefined and unpredictable future. The shrewd
investor is in and out of most such deals within three to six months, returning only if
prospects look good.
Software developer Bottomline Technologies looks like the exception because it's a real
company with solid products for an already defined and growing market. Bottomline
already has an impressive list of customers and has established an alliance with Arthur
Andersen that's likely to bring more clients to its door. The deal is likely to fatten the
bottom line of investors' portfolios and the company's stock looks like a buy and hold.
Bottomline's software allows companies to make the switch to electronic payments from
paper checks and to move into electronic commerce. It enables users to integrate
existing payment applications, including accounts payable, payroll, travel, entertainment,
insurance claims and commissions. The programs include Internet capability and run on
Windows NT, Microsoft's network technology.
Bottomline's PayBase software is designed to control, manage and issue paper-based
or electronic payments across a computer network. It includes Internet security. The
company's LaserCheck printing system allows users to streamline the payment of paper
checks and to cut checks at the point of need. The company also offers consulting
services and related equipment to help users plan, design and build for the move to
electronic commerce.
The company recently joined with Arthur Andersen to develop a marketing program
that will use the consulting firm's experience to show the benefits of switching to
PayBase. In March 1998, Bottomline Technologies scored a major coup when the
Federal Reserve System selected it to provide software that will allow as many as
12,000 banks to process electronic payments for commercial customers.
Bottomline's customers include major companies, governmental agencies and
universities, such as Aetna, Bankers Trust, Dell Computer, Kaiser Permanente, Lands'
End, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, Nissan Motor Acceptance, Harvard University and
the University of Chicago. It recently added Internet bookseller Amazon.com.
For the six months ended December 31, 1998, the company reported net income of
$1.5 million on revenues of $18.1 million, compared with net income of $627,000 on
revenues of $13.5 million for the same period a year earlier.
"This company has a solid track record and a strong peer group," says Jennifer
McBrien, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, a money-management and institutional IPO
research firm in Greenwich, Connecticut. "After some financial problems in fiscal 1997,
which the company attributes to writeoffs from an acquisition and inventory problems,
the financials are solid."
On Friday, Bottomline Technologies, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, priced 3.4
million shares, including 880,534 by current stockholders, at $13 each after price talk of
$11-$13 through underwriters led by BancBoston Robertson Stephens. The stock
opened at 19, reached 25 1/2 and closed at 20 15/32. Net proceeds will be used for
product development, international expansion and possible acquisitions. |
