
Blue Martini Makes Heads Spin, Rising Nearly 174% on Debut
Updated from 3:45 p.m. EDT
Shares of
Blue Martini Software
(BLUE) - Get bluebird bio, Inc. Report
finished up nearly 174% in its trading debut on Tuesday, in a week that is filled with notable companies going public.
The initial public offering of 7.5 million Blue Martini shares was priced at $20 a share, well above the $16 to $18 range, which had already been raised once, from $11 to $13. The $150 million issue finished Tuesday regular trading up 34 25/32 at 54 25/32.
The San Mateo, Calif.-based company develops and sells software for Internet-based business applications, such as e-marketing, e-merchandising and e-service. Its customers include privately held
Levi Strauss
, the world's No. 1 maker of brand name clothing;
Deluxe Corp.
, the largest check printer in the U.S. and
Harley-Davidson
, the only major maker of motorcycles in the U.S.
For the quarter ended March 31, Blue Martini reported a net loss of $11.6 million, or 46 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $1.6 million, or 7 cents a share, a year earlier. It reported revenue of $10.7 million, up 433% from $241,000 the 1999 quarter.
Goldman Sachs
TheStreet Recommends
was the lead manager of Blue Martini's IPO, with
Dain Rauscher Wessels
,
Thomas Weisel Partners
and
U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray
as part of the underwriting team.
Other highly-anticipated offerings this week include:
Tycom
, a spinoff of conglomerate
Tyco International
and optical networking plays
Avici Systems
and
Corvis
.