In one of the earlier posts I had advised about remaining away from the Vonage's IPO and I was deadly right. Vonage's shares performed on the bourses as was expected by almost all of us but it would perform so badly was not expected by any of us. Vonage suffered the steepest decline of any market debut in U.S. this year's as its shares plummeted nearly 13 % on account of stiff competition and rising marketing costs.
It had decided its fate in the prospectus itself. It stated in the risk factors section of its prospectus that it would never become profitable as marketing costs were going north. Richard Greenfield, analyst at Pali Research was of the opinion that before the IPO he felt that the share price should have been $10 or less.
The IPO was priced at $17 per share and the company managed to raise $531 million. Sounds surprising!! The prices of the share fell by around $2.15 before finally closing at $14.85 on the NYSE. Since the time of its birth in 2001, Vonage has been suffering losses in every quarter and till March 31 it accumulated a deficit of $445 million. Despite everything negative the company has still been able to garner half a billion dollars through the IPO. It is not surprising to me but definitely is shocking!!
The present of the company is not good nor does the future seems bright as it is facing severe competition not only from other VoIP companies but also telephone and cable television companies offering attractive packages.
Remember at one point of time Vonage was looking for a suitable buyer but when it did not succeed it decide to go public and at the end of the day who suffered?? WE.
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