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Healtheon ups IPO share price

The provider of a Net-based health-care information platform hopes to raise $40 million in an initial offering.

2 min read
Public-market hopeful Healtheon has raised the share price for its upcoming IPO despite rocky market conditions for Internet stocks.

The offering price is now 8 per share, according to documents the company filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If successful, the IPO would raise about $40 million for Healtheon.

Last week, Healtheon set the 5 million-share offering at between 6 and 7 per share. Another 750,000 shares will be issued to the underwriters, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Goldman Sachs, Hambrecht & Quist, and Volpe Brown Whelan.

Healtheon, founded by Netscape cofounder Jim Clark, has created a platform for health care information sharing and transactions on the Internet. Last month, the company signed a marketing agreement with IBM that pairs Healtheon's Internet services with IBM's Health Data Network applications.

The company has filed for an IPO twice. The first attempt, in which the company priced the shares between 6 and 8 per share, was aborted in October because of unfavorable market conditions. Healtheon hoped to raise about $78 million from that offering.

Healtheon shares will trade under the ticker symbol "HLTH."

Healtheon had $33.2 million in revenues during the first nine months ended September 30, 1998, up from $7 million a year ago. For the third quarter that ended September 30, 1998, the company's revenues rose 15.4 percent sequentially, to $12.6 million.

Clark owns 11.5 million Healtheon shares, about 18.5 percent of the company. United HealthCare, a medical insurance company, and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers each own a 14.4 percent stake.

Another e-commerce company set to go public, VerticalNet, which creates business-to-business portal sites, set its shares at 16 today. But recent volatility among Internet stocks could dampen the two companies' prospects.