Workday Sets IPO Price Range

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Workday, the maker of cloud-based software for human resources, has set the terms of its initial pricing offering, valuing the company at almost $4 billion.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Workday is pricing its IPO at $21 to $24 a share, and is looking to sell 26.1 million Class A shares in the process.

The company will sell 22.75 million shares, with the remaining shares sold by outside investors.

Workday, which lists its primary competition as Oracle (ORCL) and SAP (SAP) in the filing, is a "leading provider of enterprise cloud-based applications for human capital management (HCM), payroll, financial management, time tracking, procurement and employee expense management."

In the six months ended July 31, 2012, Workday generated $119.52 million in revenue, up from $54.82 million in the same period in 2011. Despite the sharp revenue increase, the loss in the period widened from $1.27 a share to $1.40 a share.

Workday said its in filing that does not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future.

"We expect our operating expenses to increase in the future due to anticipated increases in sales and marketing expenses, research and development expenses, operations costs and general and administrative costs, and therefore we expect our losses to continue for the foreseeable future," the filing noted.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are the lead book-runners on the deal.

The company intends to list its stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "WDAY."

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--Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York

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