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IPO Roundup: Corio, Talarian, SMTC open up

3 min read

Corio and Talarian made impressive market debuts Friday, after both firms priced above their initial ranges Thursday night.

Corio (Nasdaq: CRIO) opened at $20 up from its initial price of $14. The company's 10 million shares were well above the initial range of $11 to $13.

The stock recently dipped slightly to $18.

The application service provider hosts company resource software from PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT), Siebel Systems (Nasdaq SEBL), Broadvision (Nasdaq: BVSN), and others. For a monthly fee, it provides access to a company's front- and back-office functions, as well as connectivity with internal software.

"It's in an attractive category, but its still in the red," said Kenan Pollack of IPO Central. The company has the blue-chip of VCs backing it: Kleiner Perkins, so that also gives it credibility, Pollack said.

The company had $1,137 in revenue for the three months ended March 31, and $28,519 in loss. As of March 31, 2000, its accumulated deficit was $76.7 million.

Corio's competitors include application service providers and business process outsourcers, such as Applicast, Breakaway Solutions, Interliant, NaviSite, Qwest Cyber.Solutions, ReSourcePhoenix.com and Usinternetworking.

The deal's lead underwriter is Goldman Sachs. Co-managers include Merrill Lynch and Robertson Stephens.

  • Talarian (Nasdaq: TALR) opened at $26, up from the initial price of $16. The firm had revised its initial plan of offering four million shares at $12 to $14.

    It colled off some afterwards, and was recently trading a 20 11/16.

    For the year ended December 31, the company had a loss of $3.5 million on revenue of $5.9 million, as opposed to a loss of $1.7 million on revenue of $5.1 million in 1998. As of March 31, its accumulated deficit was about $24.8 million.

    The software developer revamped its business strategy in 1997, introducing its SmartSockets real-time infrastructure software. It has only a limited operating history with the current software product line and business strategy, making it difficult to evaluate the business.

    The firm competes with enterprise application integration vendors such as Active Software (Nasdaq: ASWX) and Vitria (Nasdaq; VITR), as well infrastructure software providers including IBM (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and BEA Systems (BEAS).

    Talarian's lead underwriter is Lehman Brothers, and the offering is being co-managed by SG Cowen and Wit SoundView.

  • SMTC Corp. (Nasdaq: SMTX), an electronics manufacturing services company, climbed 45 percent after it began trading Friday.

    It had been priced 11 million shares at $16, the top of its upwardly revised range. Shortly after opening, it was trading at 23 1/4.

    The range was raised on Thursday to $14-$16 a share from $12-$14. The number of shares was also increased to 11 million common shares from 9.625 million.

    The Ontario-based company provides services like product design, procurement and after-sales support to original equipment manufacturers in the electronics industry.

    The company has some impressive financials; for the year ended December 31, SMTC had an operating income of $6.4 million on revenue of $258 million, as compared to income of $1.5 million on revenue of $89.7 million in 1998.

    Its biggest customer last year was Dell Computer Corp.(Nasdaq: DELL), which accounted for 31.3 percent of total pro forma revenue.

    Underwriters for the deal include Lehman Bros., RBC Dominion Securities, Merrill Lynch and Robertson Stephens.

    The IPO will leave about 26 million common shares outstanding.
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