Another week, another surging debut for an Internet company: Shares of Yandex (YNDX), which bills itself as the most popular search engine in Russia, are up $10.66, or 43%, from their offer price at $35.66, after opening at $35, on their first day of trading. The company this morning priced its initial public offering of 52 million class A shares at $25, above an expected range of $20 to $22.

The offering is expected to net the company $362 million, after fees, bringing its cash balance to $478 million, the company said.

Shareholders are selling the vast majority of that offering, 37 million shares, and the total shares outstanding after the offering will be 321.3 million shares, consisting of both A and B shares, the company says in its prospectus. The class B shares control 94% of the voting power in the company.

The offer price would make the company worth roughly $8 billion.

Yandex, which has offices in the Hague, The Netherlands, and in Palo Alto, California, claims to have the most revenue of any Russian Internet company, and said it has 64% of Russia’s search traffic, with 38.3 million unique visitors to the site in March.

The Russian version of the site, yandex.ru, was founded in 1997, and the current company came out of a restructuring in 2007 of what had been a Cypriot company.

Yandex made $137 million in revenue in the three months ended in March, which in Russian rubles, is a 65% year-over-year increase. The company made $29 million in net income in the quarter, or 9 cents per share, up from roughly 6 cents per share a year earlier.

Yandex lists among its global competitors Google (GOOG) and Mail.ru, which runs a free email service.

It will be interesting to see how the offering affects trading in last week’s star, LinkedIn (LNKD), given that access to Internet high-flyers is believed by some to be behind LNKD’s sharp rise. LNKD shares this morning are down $2.30, or 2.6%, at $86, still quite a bit above the offer price last week of $45.

What about the name? Well, echoes of the past, really: the company has two principal founders — where have I seen that before? — Ilya Segalovich, and Arkady Volozh, and in their attempts to formulate a unique name, they decided to call it “yet another index.”

Hmm. Wait, where have I heard that? Yes, yes, it’s: “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” the name Jerry Yang and David Filo came up with when they formed Yahoo! (YHOO).

Maybe we need a new term: Yet Another Internet Company Selling, “YAICS!”

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Another week, another surging debut for an Internet company: Shares of Yandex (YNDX), which bills itself as the most popular search engine in Russia, are up $10.66, or 43%, from their offer price at $35.66, after opening at $35, on their first day of trading. The company this morning priced its initial public offering of 52 million class A shares at $25, above an expected range of $20 to $22.

The offering is expected to net the company $362 million, after fees, bringing its cash balance to $478 million, the company said.

Shareholders are selling the vast majority of that offering, 37 million shares, and the total shares outstanding after the offering will be 321.3 million shares, consisting of both A and B shares, the company says in its prospectus. The class B shares control 94% of the voting power in the company.

The offer price would make the company worth roughly $8 billion.

Yandex, which has offices in the Hague, The Netherlands, and in Palo Alto, California, claims to have the most revenue of any Russian Internet company, and said it has 64% of Russia’s search traffic, with 38.3 million unique visitors to the site in March.

The Russian version of the site, yandex.ru, was founded in 1997, and the current company came out of a restructuring in 2007 of what had been a Cypriot company.

Yandex made $137 million in revenue in the three months ended in March, which in Russian rubles, is a 65% year-over-year increase. The company made $29 million in net income in the quarter, or 9 cents per share, up from roughly 6 cents per share a year earlier.

Yandex lists among its global competitors Google (GOOG) and Mail.ru, which runs a free email service.

It will be interesting to see how the offering affects trading in last week’s star, LinkedIn (LNKD), given that access to Internet high-flyers is believed by some to be behind LNKD’s sharp rise. LNKD shares this morning are down $2.30, or 2.6%, at $86, still quite a bit above the offer price last week of $45.

What about the name? Well, echoes of the past, really: the company has two principal founders — where have I seen that before? — Ilya Segalovich, and Arkady Volozh, and in their attempts to formulate a unique name, they decided to call it “yet another index.”

Hmm. Wait, where have I heard that? Yes, yes, it’s: “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” the name Jerry Yang and David Filo came up with when they formed Yahoo! (YHOO).

Maybe we need a new term: Yet Another Internet Company Selling, “YAICS!”

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Another week, another surging debut for an Internet company: Shares of Yandex (YNDX), which bills itself as the most popular search engine in Russia, are up $10.66, or 43%, from their offer price at $35.66, after opening at $35, on their first day of trading. The company this morning priced its initial public offering of 52 million class A shares at $25, above an expected range of $20 to $22.

The offering is expected to net the company $362 million, after fees, bringing its cash balance to $478 million, the company said.

Shareholders are selling the vast majority of that offering, 37 million shares, and the total shares outstanding after the offering will be 321.3 million shares, consisting of both A and B shares, the company says in its prospectus. The class B shares control 94% of the voting power in the company.

The offer price would make the company worth roughly $8 billion.

Yandex, which has offices in the Hague, The Netherlands, and in Palo Alto, California, claims to have the most revenue of any Russian Internet company, and said it has 64% of Russia’s search traffic, with 38.3 million unique visitors to the site in March.

The Russian version of the site, yandex.ru, was founded in 1997, and the current company came out of a restructuring in 2007 of what had been a Cypriot company.

Yandex made $137 million in revenue in the three months ended in March, which in Russian rubles, is a 65% year-over-year increase. The company made $29 million in net income in the quarter, or 9 cents per share, up from roughly 6 cents per share a year earlier.

Yandex lists among its global competitors Google (GOOG) and Mail.ru, which runs a free email service.

It will be interesting to see how the offering affects trading in last week’s star, LinkedIn (LNKD), given that access to Internet high-flyers is believed by some to be behind LNKD’s sharp rise. LNKD shares this morning are down $2.30, or 2.6%, at $86, still quite a bit above the offer price last week of $45.

What about the name? Well, echoes of the past, really: the company has two principal founders — where have I seen that before? — Ilya Segalovich, and Arkady Volozh, and in their attempts to formulate a unique name, they decided to call it “yet another index.”

Hmm. Wait, where have I heard that? Yes, yes, it’s: “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” the name Jerry Yang and David Filo came up with when they formed Yahoo! (YHOO).

Maybe we need a new term: Yet Another Internet Company Selling, “YAICS!”

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Group-buying titan Groupon has taken further steps towards an initial public offering by selecting Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to underwrite the offering, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal citing “people familiar with the matter.”

It’s been pretty clear for the past few months that an IPO is in Groupon’s sights, especially after the company walked away from a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google last year then raised a whopping $950 million in funding.

Bloomberg reported last month that Groupon was planning a $25 billion IPO this year. Now the Journal says that the IPO is expected to value the company between $15 and $20 billion. A number of consumer Internet companies, such as LinkedIn, have started filing for their IPOs this year. As reported, Groupon’s IPO would dwarf the offerings announced so far, though Facebook is likely to follow with an even larger IPO in the next couple of years.

I’ve emailed Groupon for comment and will update here if I hear from them.

Tags: IPOs

Companies: Goldman Sachs, Groupon, Morgan Stanley

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Verizon Communications (VZ) is putting together a bond offering that could total as much as $6 billion, writes Dow Jones Newswires’s Katy Burne this morning, citing an anonymous source.

The source says the offering, split in five pieces including three, five, ten, and 30-year portions, is being “driven by demand,” Burne writes. Verizon will use the proceeds to help pay off its $3.7 billion of commercial paper, Burne writes.

Verizon has $45.3 billion long-term debt outstanding, she writes, and $7.5 billion coming due in the next 12 months.

Verizon shares are down 46 cents, or 1%, at $36.49.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Solarfun (SOLF) shares are coming under pressure after pricing an offering of 5.91 common shares at $9, well below yesterday’s close at $10.13. The pricing was reported by TheFlyOnTheWal.com.
SOLF shares had declined earlier this week when the company filed the offering.
SOLF this morning is down $1.07, or 10.6%, to $9.06.

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Solarfun Power (SOLF) shares are taking a hit this morning after the company announced plans to sell up to $67.8 million of American depositary shares, each representing five ordinary shares. The solar company will grant the underwriters an option to purchase an additional 15% of the offering size to cover [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

$$$ Buffett Successor Todd Combs’ Castle Point Capital Management Returns [AR]

$$$ Goldman Sachs Boosts Size of 50-Year Debt Offering [Reuters]

$$$ Air New Zealand to Offer “Cuddle Class” on Auckland-LA Flights [NBCLA]

$$$ Southridge Hicks’ says SEC charges won’t stick [Forbes]

$$$ Want To Get Away With Murder? [Fortune]

$$$ Homeowners Win Fights Over Mistaken Foreclosures [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Juniper Networks (JNPR) this afternoon said it plans to file a “universal shelf registration” to authorize the offering of $1.5 billion of securities, which could consist of stock, debt, preferred, units or some combination of those.
The networking equipment company said it does not have any immediate plans to offer securities [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

FuelCell Energy (FCEL) this morning announced the offering of 24 million common shares at $1.25 apiece, raising gross proceeds of $30 million, or about $28 million after expenses. The offering comes at 16.7% discount to yesterday’s close at $1.50; the stock closed at $1.72 as recently as Monday, and on [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily