We have been doing some background research on OpenTable in preparation for a pre-IPO report which we often do for technology and related issues. (This time we even have a full interactive model behind the analysis from a new research partner that we think will further enhance the interest we get.)
Oddly enough we are just getting started when we ran into the proverbial elephant in the room. Is the fully-diluted share count on this puppy really 250 million shares. (!) We’re still going to finish up and publish our analysis and model but how on earth can such an IPO be priced given that current year revenues will fall in the range of $50M?
The simple math of the IPO is that if the deal is priced at $1 the shares will be at 5x 2009 sales. As one simple datapoint we compare it to Salesforce.com which is sporting a TEV/Revenue multiple of 2.8x.
We’ve looked this over a few times and keep thinking that we are making some incredible mistake. It’s as if someone forgot to put in the 1-for-10 reverse split to make the math work for the deal to get priced.Â
So at the risk of appearing like are dazed and confused we put our observation out there and hope someone can help us to get better information.Â
If the company plans to do a reverse split why wouldn’t they do it before filing the S-1?  In this market there’s hardly a huge rush to get filed and out there.Â
A 1 for 10 begins to make potential IPO pricing make sense but we would consider a much higher ratio to get the projected price into the double digits.
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I am 99% sure you are right. The S-1 clearly states that the # shares after the offering is 250.2MM (as of 12/31/08). It would be a 6 sigma event to get this # wrong in an S-1.
Not sure the point of this post . . . there obviously going to adjust the shares for a reverse split in a latter amendment (S-1/A). I know you guys have good backgrounds, but this is not a big deal. Perhaps it was an oversight on their part for not adjusting it prior to the S-1, but you it would have been mroe helpful if you provided more analysis on the actual business itself (I’m sure you could come up with some knocks other than the share count). Just a thought.
Thanks for your comments BTK, yes we are indeed planning on a full analysis of the company prior to the IPO.
I agree that doing a reverse split is easy to do but why wouldn’t you do it prior to filing? There’s no rush on this after all. Word is the deal is not going to come until late April. Normally this is done prior to filing in my experience.
Before the IPO we should have a full analysis with a working model and so on.
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