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Mandriva Businesses

Mandrake IPO Successful 46

Posted by timothy from the many-happy-returns dept.
Subscribers to Mandrake's weekly newsletter got the news earlier today that "MandrakeSoft is pleased to announce that the company is now listed on the Euronext Marché Libre. As a result of the successful Initial Public Offering, a total of 688.480 shares were sold at 6.2 Euros each. This results in an increase in capital of approximately 4.3 million Euros and represents 20.28% of the company's capital after issue." A good portion of the offering was completed in just the last half-day of availability, according to email received from Mandrake higher-ups, in part perhaps because of the confusion about who could participate in the offer, and how. There's also a story about the IPO at NewsForge, and a discussion at Mandrake's forum. If you're interested in picking up any stock in the company, there are some useful pointers (and more info) at their investor info page.
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Mandrake IPO Successful More

Mandrake IPO Successful

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  • Re:This is good news (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    yeah, we should all put our money in "real" companies like Cisco or Nortel or, ...oh wait, nevermind.

  • At least Mandrake tried. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But the Linux market, in general, is failing.

    Now Linux companies are consolidating, overhauling their business plans, laying off staff, scaling back expansion plans and pushing back profitability schedules. "It would seem there are too many distributions for the market to bear," said Gartner analyst Tom Henkel. (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,269 5638,00.html)

    Red Hat, Inc., the leader in developing deploying and managing open source linux solutions, announced on a reported basis, a net loss of $24.2 million. (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-0 3-22-010-20-PS)

    Turbolinux, based in Brisbane, Calif., a Linux-based software provider has withdrawn a $60 million initial public offering "in light of current market conditions." (http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010320/n20215287_2.html) (http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/20/deals/ipo/)

    Clayton-based Linuxgruven.com, a Linux training and service company with 106 employees, laid off 100 employees (http://stlouis.bcentral.com/stlouis/stories/2001/ 03/05/daily41.html)

    Lineo withdrew its initial public offering in January. Caldera Systems delayed the acquisition of Santa Cruz Operations' Unix software by a quarter. Linuxcare laid off dozens in February, with Linuxcare co-founders Dave Sifry and Dave LaDuke are among those departing. VA Linux Systems cut 114 people in February and delayed its expected profitability by nine months. (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,269 5638,00.html)

    Due to the troubles of Corel, abysmal sales and so on, Corel Linux is going out of business and was nearly taken over by Microsoft who sell another troubled OS. Owing to the GPL, SuSE is laying off almost all of its US staff. Major marketing surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Even LinuxWorld.com shut down "because of the economy and everything else" (http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/ 1720254&mode=nocomment)

  • ...688,480 shares sold at 6.2 Euros each...

    First thing I said to myself was "that should be 640,480". I'm such a nerd...

  • "Reverse stock split"? Wouldn't a better term be "stock join" or something?

  • Nowadays when I hear of some company or another having an IPO or otherwise doing things to get noticed and attract investors, I get nervous. We've all seen lots of enterprises with great potential going down the tubes like a greek tragedy because the people running the show were either stupid, greedy, lazy, crazy, dishonest, or some strange mixture of all of the above. Nothing will kill off honest effort and hard work faster than easy money. It is also difficult sometimes to keep your perspective and know that long term success means continuing to do the kinds of things that made you successful in the first place. Hate them or dispise them, this is the lesson that Bill Gates and the rest of Microsoft didn't forget. The company is just as aggressive and today as it was years ago when it was but one company among many and there was no clear winner in sight. Open source companies that are successful must have an equal level of discipline. I hope that Mandrakesoft has that, because I've always liked their distribution. It's made for newbies and clueless types, but those are the exact people we need to be making Linux more useful to.

    Lee
  • The open source model has never been about making money. The only thing it has ever been about is making better code, and making code that others could improve as well. It is a perfect example of true communism (not the enforced socialist oppression we normally call communism). Now I'm not a Marxist, but neither am I strictly a capitalist. Economic ideologies aren't an ideological issue for me. I'm a libertarian by nature and as such believe in freedom. If freedom can exist within the context of true communism then great, I have no problem with that. But that doesn't mean I'm foolish enough to think that the communism that is open source can be a viable capitalist enterprise.

    A one point a lot of people of questionable intelligence and even more questionable awareness saw Linux as the next big thing. So they invested a boatload of money into companies without understanding that these companies were trying to make money off something that was not an economic good in the strictest sense.

    While it may be possible to make some money off open source, I seriously doubt that more than a handful of people are going to make a lot of money off it. When this fact has been raised, the open source/free software community has generally responded very poorly. Rather than acknowledging this fact we have instead spent our efforts trying to pander to potential investors and generally fool everyone, especially ourselves, into thinking that open source companies can make a lot of money.

    It is true that Redhat is in the black now, at least on paper. But imagine if Linux were a traditional product and that it enjoyed the level of popularity that it does right now, Redhat would be like Apple was in the late 70's, a fairy tale success story. There is a question of course of whether Linux would be this popular if it were a commercial product created and marketed by one company, but my example was a hypothetical one.

    The truth is that open source companies would fare better in the long run as non profit enterprises. Non profit companies exist to provide a valuable service to the community rather than to make money. Whatever income they receive goes to things like bills, staff salaries, etc. There aren't any investors wailing for profits.

    So now tell me, what model does open source fit into better: making money, or providing a service to the community?

    Lee
  • Reverse splits exist, yes, but they are essentially *never* done. Why raise the stock price on paper so that investors can knock it back down again?

    --
  • Okay, jobs.osdn.com may be running M$, but check out the netcraft site for www.osdn.com [netcraft.com] and compare uptimes.

    That is all you should need to know about web server choice.


    Frog51
  • The point of Linux is that its free. And not as in beer. The strenght of Linux is the usergroups, I never saw any software from ceo@mandrake ..

    I know I'll get flamed for this post, but Im not intrested in -buying- my Linux dist, just because they got an IPO..

    Support on the other hand, thats another thing..

  • I am going to buy some of this stock, later today. I really like Mandrake, mainly for desktop stuff like my Mom's PC and such. Way to go!

    In other news, this story [kuro5hin.org] will make your asshole pucker!



    Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
  • RedHat, the previous usage leader, always needs post-installation twiddling to get everything usable (in my experience). This often involves adding a module or option to the kernel. Unfortunately, the fact that you have to then edit the top level kernel makefile and replace "gcc" with "kgcc" in two places is enough to put a usable RedHat installation out of the reach of many. Hell, it always bites me after I try and get compile errors, then I remember oh shit, I forgot RH screwed themselves, and go back.

    On the other hand, it might be possible that Mandrake is just as hard to post-install twiddle, but I've have never had to do it. Mandrake is always usable, having drivers or modules for all hardware, after the install. I just start using it.

    This difference goes back at least to the RH6.2/Mandrake7.0 days (just a few months ago). For example, at that time RedHat wouldn't run out of the box on athlons, unless you knew enough to type in a special kernel option to LILO. Then you had to go and edit lilo.conf and rerun lilo, or recompile the kernel so it didn't need that option. Mandrake spun up right off the bat.

    I think that one of the best hopes for either RedHat or Mandrake is to be paid fees by an OEM to make sure the distribution works on all of their machines with minimal user expertise. Aside from the fact that no OEMs are currently making enough money to really pay either RedHat or Mandrake a lot, if I where looking for a company to do that I would choose Mandrake. Why start from second-best to get better, when you can pay the best to get better ?
  • Yes, I'd have to agree, and in that sense, Steve Case may just be the smartest man in the tech biz.

    At the top of the boom, he buys a "real" company with his stock (inflated, like everyone elses) I might disagree w/his choice of company, but as you say, buying real assets with inflated paper, can't be beat.
  • Try a "real" company that didn't get caught up in the bubble. If you don't know what a bubble is, read up on your history. Nortel & Cisco were real companies until they started to believe their stock price was justified. Then they went out & overpaid for other companies inflated stock with shareholders money (dilution of capital stock).

    A real company would have been issuing press releases left, right, and centre suggesting that current valuations were unwarranted. I mean they tell you they're undervalued when the stock is down, why not the reverse? But alas, we're a greedy species.

    Case in point, I once invested in a firm that got into trouble and eventually declared bankruptcy. In the preceding chaos, the stock had several rallies and the CEO calmly informed shareholders and shareholders to be that while they were doing the best they could to preserve the shareholders position, it was likely that 100% of the company would end up with it's creditors, with nothing left for shareholders. When asked why he thought the stock was rallying he replied, "Wallpaper! Maybe they need cheap wallpaper!"

  • Re:Valuation of Linux distros? (Score:3)

    by stu72 ( 96650 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2001 @12:32AM (#2181238)
    Reverse splits are done all the time to:

    a) maintain an exchange listing requirement that the shares trade above some price, i.e. $1

    b) pander to joe-six pack investors who equate big prices to stabilty & respectibility

    Splits are only done for joe-six packs also, but for a different reason - they don't have enough money to buy a board lot (100 shares) at $100+/share, so most companies try to do splits to keep their share price between $10 & $100.

    It's the valuation that matters - you can have 1 billion shares trading at one penny each or 1 million shares trading at $1 - makes no financial difference whatsoever, only a pyschological difference in the minds of some investors. (which of course, will manifest itself in a real financial difference for the company's stock performance if people buy or sell based on that pyschology, which they do.)

    Of course, if a company has to worry about a) or b) above, there's probably a reason for it, a reason you should know before you invest.

  • It's good to remember investors, not Linux users, control the market....

    If the Linux users aren't controlling the market, then maybe they're not 3L337 enough...

  • A lot of technology companies try reverse stock splits to avoid being delisted from NASDAQ because their share price drops below a dollar for too long. A list of companies that have had reverse stock splits in recent memory,
    1. Webvan: 25 to 1 reverse stock split [yahoo.com].

    2. Iomega: 5 to 1 reverse stock split [yahoo.com].

    3. 24/7 Media: 25 to 1 reverse stock split [yahoo.com]

    4. Egghead.com: Between 5 and 10 to 1 reverse stock split [bcentral.com]

    5. Quokka.com: 50 to 1 reverse stock split [cnet.com]
    There also a bunch more companies that decided not to go through the embarassment of a reverse split (especially since they rarely work) and just allowed themselves to be delisted without much of a fight. Considering that Caldera has been under a dollar for almost two weeks [yahoo.com], who knows they may be next to face the delisting blues?

    --
  • There are plenty of INDIVIDUALS with net worths greater than $15 million. If memory serves, Webvan was still worth more than $50 million the day before they filed for bankrupcy. $15 million for a corporation is nothing.


    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

  • Infernal Public Outstall? internal Processing Octet? Initial Plumbing Offer?

    Incidental Programming Outage.

    All I know is, my portfolio is singing some crazy tunes ;)

  • Maybe we'll get to see some honest prices for shares for service and support companies instead of the feeding frenzy of the past couple years.

    On the other hand, those of us who bought before last January still have a positive numbered return from our portfolio.

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
  • Assuming you're serious about the $250, you must be getting that from the 688.480.

    Hopefully, you're not stupid and you realize that in Europe, they use the period instead of a comma to separate monetary amounts.
  • For those of you that multipled the numbers together and were confused as to how they came up with 4.3 million, it should either read 688,480 shares sold at 6.2 Euros each or 688.480 shares sold at 6,2 Euros each, depending on what country you're from. I hope this is helpful -- I'm not trying to be critical.
    Actually, it has to be 688.480 shares sold at 6,2 Euros each to make it 4.3 million, otherwise it'd have to be *4,3* million. I hope this is helpful -- I'm not trying to be pendantic -- oh wait...

    Kjella
  • And any IPO in any country other than the US is a waste of time.
    Not really since foreign markets are not affected by what is happening in the U.S. markets except now, and any IPO isn't a waste of time. It's just to time to gain capital. Plus since Mandrake is the only linux company listed on the market in Europe, I think, they stand a better chance to do better as long as there earnings are on track..and other things.
  • I hope Mandrake's share price doesn't end up crashing into Mars' North Pole ...

  • A real company would have been issuing press releases left, right, and centre suggesting that current valuations were unwarranted.

    Or, as some of the smarter companies did, use their paper value to buy up companies with tangible assets (using shares, *not* cash like stupider companies did), so they ended up with some solid value after the crash. In other words, exploit the situation with an eye on the long term.

  • Did you have ever see the market share of Linux-Mandrake ?

    Have a look to PC DATA (US retail market) and have a look to Google with the keywords: "caldera mandrake suse redhat poll". And you'll see that all the polls show Mandrake to be one of the most used distro:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=caldera+mandrake+su se+redhat+poll&btnG=Google+Search [google.com]

  • This is NOT a flame, but does anyone know what sort of regulations Euronext/Marche Libre has on shorting IPOs ? Is there some sort of lockout period ? I looked on their (i.e. Euronext) website but couldn't find any information (sure was hard to navigate there). Hell, I couldn't even find a way to get a damn quote !! I found some quotes on fr.finance.yahoo.com but it doesn't seem to be live...there's no volume showing and the last price was the opening price.
  • First, some asshole (that you Kevin?) modifies the old BSD-is-dying troll to cover Linux. Then somebody loses self-control for a second and takes the bait with a one-line 'fuck you'. Now this guy wants to support the troll! He produces a long-winded lecture about trying to squelch people's freedom to post cut-n-paste flamebait AND IT GETS MODDED UP TO 3!

    What the hell is Slashdot coming to?
  • Forget the grotesquely inflated values of bubble IPOs and go back just ten years. IPO prices for software companies were routinely running in the tens of millions then, and the desktop and server markets have grown enormously in the last ten years.

    And here we have an IPO for under 5 million Euros. That's not even in the ballpark for what a software company would have IPO'd for ten years ago.

    It's pretty good for a company that has always lost money, I suppose, but it doesn't exactly hold out the prospect of a brilliant future.

    Tim

  • Webvan went under before they could do the reverse split. Iomega has not done the split yet. Egghead has not either. Nor nor has 24/7 . Quokka is out of buisness now. Reverse splits are widely seen as the dying gasp for a company.

  • Great news (Score:4)

    by hyrdra ( 260687 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @10:44PM (#2181255) Homepage Journal
    This is great news. Now lets see if they can actually turn a profit on the capital they've been given.

    It's good to remember investors, not Linux users, control the market (and thus fate of companies). So go out there and support your software -- buy it!
  • have a look here [boursorama.com].
    it's in French, but everyone should understand easily. last share value is right to "Dernier:".

  • Other Links (Score:5)

    by phantumstranger ( 310589 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2001 @02:56AM (#2181257) Homepage
    First off, kudos Mandrake!!!

    Here's [mandrakesoft.com] a PDF describing the market.

    Here [mandrakesoft.com] is Mandrakes information page on the IPO.

    Finally, this [mandrakeforum.com] a price-per-share page.

  • Okay, jobs.osdn.com may be running M$, but check out the netcraft site for www.osdn.com and compare uptimes. That is all you should need to know about web server choice.

    Apparently, if jobs.osdn.com is running MS, then uptimes is NOT the only thing you need to know. And (correct me if I'm wrong, I most likely am), it looks like this site hasn't been around for long enough to have a long uptime.
    And the reboots could be for patching the OS against 'Code Red'.
    Well, still...

  • This link [liberation.com], in French, basically states that the IPO was successful thanks to the Linux Community buying the stocks, and not the traditional investors... So it means that those users have control, people able to understand why Mandrake might not make a profit soon...
  • You're the kind of people that make the "attitude" of the Linux community. You are also the kind of person that makes me an advocate of Linux, but not a self-proclaimed "member of the Linux community."

    The fact that the Linux community doesn't want to hear others' opinions is completely apparent. Maybe he didn't make the greatest support for his statements (I think many of us could make many more to back up what he stated), but he is heading in the right direction. Programmers need to live and raise families... something they can not do producing free software 24x7. They need income to survive and they won't get income by being open source developers.

    The whole "bond" thing mentioned the other day on /. is a perfect example of how people are attempting to "live" from OpenSource software, but I have a strong feeling this won't fly too well since those who purchase such a bond won't be able to make any kind of profit on their money (and very few people are willing to give away free money, especially now that we're in a recession).

    A lot of companies are doing the "service & support" thing like Mandrakesoft, but I honestly fee that the numerous newsgroups, IRC channels, and web pages can provide much better support for any Linux distro and/or opensourced project than any company can. By sheer numbers, we can see that Mandrakesoft (nor RedHat; nor Caldera) can hire 1 million people to do service & support while newsgroups and the such offer such a wide range of experience and aptitude.

    As for survivability, Linux will survive, maybe more so for hobbyists and those who like the alternative. Linux won't be able to make money directly to those who build companies around it or Open Sourced software (well, maybe a few but I don't see a trend). The money will come into those individual programmers who spend their days working for an IT shop (or going to school) and their nights coding their window manager; using this project to get them experience which means better jobs. A person who developes open sourced software is looking at expanding his/her own horizons and by getting jobs for software companies that sell software, (s)he will be able to make the money (s)he needs to live, raise their family, and provide a better coder so future versions of windows DON'T SUCK.


    I think you need to flash your brain's firmware.

  • Umm -- a little confusing.... (Score:4)

    by GreyPoopon ( 411036 ) <gpoopon@gma i l .com> on Tuesday July 31, 2001 @12:18AM (#2181261)
    a total of 688.480 shares were sold at 6.2 Euros each. This results in an increase in capital of approximately 4.3 million Euros

    For those of you that multipled the numbers together and were confused as to how they came up with 4.3 million, it should either read 688,480 shares sold at 6.2 Euros each or 688.480 shares sold at 6,2 Euros each, depending on what country you're from. I hope this is helpful -- I'm not trying to be critical.

    GreyPoopon
    --

  • "uptime" is nice but .........

    I have a computer at work running Windows 3.1 and it's only been rebooted twice in the last 4 years and both of those were the result of power failures. Does that mean that Windows 3.1 is a desirable OS?

    I don't think so.

  • Mandrake's version of Linux is quite nice. I actually bought a copy and like it.

    The real question.....now that they have pocketed a few million Euros.......is what are they going to do with that money?

    All Linux distros have been handed a golden opportunity by Microsuck. Between the load of crap called Windows XP, Microsuck's arrogance and the Gestapo tactics of the BSA, now is the perfect time for somebody to do some serious marketing of Linux.

    Or they could just be like all the other Internet companies and spend the money on Aeron chairs and foosball tables.

  • Can you imaging a beowulf custer of IPOs?
    I don't have to imagine don't you remember last year?


  • I didn't bother looking up the exchange because personall I don't really care. Anyways, at the height of the US economy, I know it was down to like 85 cents on the dollar. It still isn't very much money. What will that buy you, 3.75 McDonalds.
    ----
  • Because I knew approximately how much it was. .75 millions of dollars is close enough to get the point across. If I really cared about the specifics, I would look it up.
    ----
  • You got me their. I'm used to doing the same thing.
    ----
  • I don't think to be the unique Linux company in Europe isted is such a big think. First the analists are not so well aware of the linux market in Europe for business as in the States. And Mandrake will most prabably be gathered in the Internet, .com ,cluster on the stock market, wich in these days is bad.
  • When buying stock, you should now: The present financial strength of the company, theirs ideas, who is running the company and where he has been, etc. You don't buy because someone tell you on tv: probably he is worjing for the bank/stock broker selling it.

  • Valuation of Linux distros? (Score:5)

    by helsingin travolta ( 471690 ) on Monday July 30, 2001 @11:11PM (#2181270)
    C'mon, their valuation after this is something like 15 million USD. That is much for a company not selling anything but support contracts and GPL'ed cds. However, Caldera's valuation is 30 milj USD and Red Hat is ... 672 million! Ok, the Hat has other hassles going on but these little companies having just a distro as their core product... Hint: SELL, SELL, SELL!

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