Here is something to keep a watch on:
DLIA will be spinning off ITurf in the first week of April.
cbs.marketwatch.com
Generation Y-PO: Alloy files for deal
Company to follow offering from Delia's iTurf
By Darren Chervitz, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:16 PM ET Mar 10, 1999 Also: Net Stocks
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Alloy Online filed to raise as much as $46 million in an upcoming initial public offering, becoming the second Internet cataloguer targeting the teen-ager set with hopes of going public.
The New York company said in its filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission that its sales grew to $10.2 million in 1998, compared to $1.8 million in 1997, and traffic rose to 17 million page views in February 1999, up from 1.5 million in the year-ago period.
Gross margins also improved to 46 percent in 1998 vs. 42 percent in 1997, but total losses also jumped to $6.4 million from $1.9 million.
Sales so far have come primarily through merchandise bought through the Web site or direct mail catalogs, but Alloy said the company will begin to focus on advertising.
BancBoston Robertson Stephens is heading the deal, and Volpe Brown Whelan, Dain Rauscher Wessels and Ladenburg Thalmann are co-managers.
Alloy isn't the only company focused on the Generation Y demographic -- generally defined as males and females 10 to 24 -- that is preparing to go public. iTurf, a spin-off of direct marketer Delia's (DLIA), also filed to raise as much in an IPO headed by BT. Alex Brown.
The iTurf IPO is expected during the first week in April.
It's little surprise that Generation Y is attracting all this attention from Internet companies. According to the Alloy.com prospectus, the demographic is growing about 20 percent faster than the overall U.S. population and accounts for more than $250 billion of annual disposable income.
"We believe, based on industry data, that nearly 65 percent of Generation Y currently use the Internet and 88 percent regard the Internet, and specifically online community functions such as chat rooms, as 'cool,'" the company says in the document.
Other IPO news
IVillage's business practices are coming under some heat just prior to the company's expected IPO next week. According to a New York Times article, the company's former chief financial officer contends that the women-focused Web site publisher recognized revenue too aggressively. The allegations were made in a sworn declaration filed in a Nashville federal court last week.
"I felt the company was recognizing revenues prematurely (indeed, in some instances even before letters of intent were signed)," the declaration said, according to the Times.
The ex-chief financial officer said she encouraged iVillage's CEO Candice Carpenter to change the company's revenue recognition practices. She said she was demoted from her position eight weeks after being hired and fired two months later.
The declaration was made as part of evidence being gathered in a lawsuit brought against by the company by another former employee, Todd L. Kenner. Kenner alleges in his suit that iVillage failed to deliver stock options that were promised to him.
The company did not directly respond to the allegations but did tell the Times it stood by its financial results, which have been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
IVillage is expected to price its 3.65 million share offering at $12 to $14 early next week.
-NH |
