Netsuite Sets Head on IPO Auction Block

SaaS-based CRM purveyor NetSuite, managed by Oracle's Larry Ellison, filed for an auction-style IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

NetSuite is considered a direct competitor to Salesforce, which in April bought its way into the CM space.

NetSuite hopes to raise US$ 75 million in an acquisition bid.

Larry Ellison, his affiliates and various family members currently hold a 74 percent stake in the company. They are expected to maintain control of NetSuite even after the IPO, news that may not exactly court enthusiastic investors.

Because Ellison's interest in NetSuite is over 50 percent, the company is exempted from certain corporate governance standards managed by Nasdaq and the NYSE. The primary shareholder can also veto buying interest.

NetSuite provides hosted CRM services, as well as enterprise resource planning software and e-commerce tools. Along with Salesforce, it is loosely characterized as a Communications 2.0 tool for its on-demand software-as-a-service (SaaS) quality.

Last year NetSuite generated US$ 67.2 million in revenue, up almost 85 percent from the previous year. But the picture isn't all sunny. The company is host to a sad string of losses, running red about US$ 23.4 million in 2006. In total, NetSuite has an accumulated deficit of US$ 193 million.

The company has not yet released the number of shares it would sell, or the price range for said shares. But it did state it would use the bid funds to build working capital, repay its balance with Ellison's Tako Ventures, which ran to about US$ 7.5 million in secured debt.

But the relationship between NetSuite and Oracle has always been rather cozy. In 2005 NetSuite signed a US$ 2.5 million deal with Oracle for a perpetual license on some of its software and services. And last year, it even fronted US$ 542,000 of software to Oracle Racing, a sailboat-racing syndicate, in exchange for promotion as an official supplier.

Analyst Matt Toole at Thomson Financial notes that Q2 of 2007 has been one of the biggest for IPOs since 2004 based on sheer number of offerings. Of particular interest have been tech companies. 13 out of 26 initial public offerings in Q2 have been tech-oriented.

Netsuite Sets Head on IPO Auction Block

SaaS-based CRM purveyor NetSuite, managed by Oracle's Larry Ellison, filed for an auction-style IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.\n\nNetSuite is considered a direct competitor to Salesforce, which in April bought its way into the CM space.

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