Update: Akamai, Chartered Semi IPOs take off
Friday's investors went gaga over Web traffic management technology.
IPO Akamai (Nasdaq: AKAM) rocketed up 458 percent to 145 3/16 -- a gain of 119 3/16 for the session. The company priced shares at $26 each Thursday night, well above its increased $16-$18 range for trading Friday.
Akamai's FreeFlow service finds space for its websites on multiple servers, which speeds up Web site downloads and protects against crashes caused by excess demand. Using software based on its proprietary algorithms, Akamai monitors Internet traffic and delivers content by the most efficient route. Cisco has a $50 million stake, and Microsoft has a $15 million investment in the company with a mathematical algorithm that makes the Web faster.
Morgan Stanley is the lead underwriter for the offering of 8 million shares, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette and Salomon Smith Barney are the co-managers. Shares are expected to price between $16 and $18 each.
"It's in a new technology category," which is bound to make it hot, said Francis Gaskins of the IPO Desktop. Gaskins compares Akamai to Inktomi, the main player in a market predicted to grow from $2 billion to $23 billion by 2002 according to International Data Corporation.
This past August, Akamai formed an alliance with Cisco Systems to develop new routing, switching and caching technologies to improve content delivery. As part of the deal, Cisco took a $49 million stake in Akamai.
Inktomi's recent move to buy content distribution and tracking software company WebSpective Software may be an attempt to keep up with Akamai as it gets a boost of IPO funding. Inktomi had $25.3 million in revenue in the first half of its fiscal year, which ends this month, while Akamai had just $404,000 in revenue, and a net loss of $9.7 million in the six months ended June 30.
Other initial public offerings Friday:
Charter's top five customers are Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Level One Communications, Broadcom and Conexant. The company also has technology alliances with semiconductor companies such as Lucent and Motorola.
Chartered had $183.3 million in revenue for the three months ended September 30, compared to $83.9 million for the same period last year. Chartered has dramatically narrowed its losses while increasing revenue; net loss for the 1999 period was $6.2 million, compared to $52.7 million for the 1998 quarter.
Finding shares wasn't a problem with such an unusually large float. The company upped its offering from 14.75 million to 15.75 million.
The company that wires buildings with fibre optic cable. Though revenue was a mere $547,000 for the six months ended June 30, net loss for the six months was $19.5 million. Goldman Sachs is the lead underwriter for the offering, Merrill Lynch and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette are co-managers.
Forrester Research projects that the market for data networking services and Internet access will grow from $9.6 billion in 1998 to approximately $49.7 billion by 2002, of which approximately $27.9 billion will be generated from services provided to business customers.
It's hard to predict the company's success since most others in the space have a limited customer base, Gaskins said. Allied has signed up a lot of buildings, and should have an ongoing subscriber base.
Risks aside from the uncertainty of the company's business model includes a planned $16 million charge for modifying the company's current system in the second half of the fiscal year. Present systems have been identified as inadequate to meet the company's increased demands for billing and collections, and work-flow.