INTERVIEW-EDGAR could weather IPO market downturn
By Reshma Kapadia
NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) - EDGAR Online Inc.<EDGR.O> President Tom Vos said Wednesday that the company, which itself went public Wednesday, would be able to weather a downturn in the initial public offering market or the stock market as a whole.
The Norwalk, Conn.-based provider of corporate filings by public companies with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gets its revenues from online subscriptions, advertising and corporate clients who use its service.
The EDGAR service is often used to gather information about IPOs.
"I am as mystified as others on the intricacies of the stock market, but because our business has three revenue sources, especially corporate clients, I think we have a solid business model that can be sustained regardless of whether the market is going up or down," Vos said in a phone interview following the start of trading in the company's stock.
EDGAR's 3.6 million share IPO was priced at $9.50 per share through underwriters led by C.E. Unterberg, Towbin.
Vos added that EDGAR's service is important as a strategic tool for the market even when the market were falling.
The company debuted in a precarious market frazzled by continued weakness in Internet issues. Several IPOs that had been expected to be "hot" saw tempered gains, and two Internet deals broke below their offering prices.
EDGAR Online was trading up 15/16 at 9-15/16 in the afternoon.
It expects to use part of the $34.2 million raised in the offering to build a sales force that can sell its services to corporate markets and to advertise its services.
"We feel there is a great market for our services outside the traditional legal and financial worlds," Vos said. "We want to acquaint these (other) markets with the information that we can mine out of SEC filings."
The other markets include human resources and sales, he added.
18:10 05-26-99 |
