IPO meltdown at Rackspace

9 Aug 2008

For the most part, the IPO market has been horrible this year. In fact, according to a report from Reuters, only three IT (information technology) companies have gone public this year.

Despite this, web-hosting company Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) still went ahead with its IPO this week. And, it was pretty bad for investors. On its opening day, the stock price plunged 20% to $10. Ironically enough, Wall Street was hoping that the Rackspace deal would help spark the IPO market.

After all, Rackspace is a great company. Keep in mind that its investor roster includes biggies like Norwest Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital.

Moreover, unlike other upstart tech IPOs, Rackspace has a strong history of profitability. In Q1, net income was $5.4 million. Rackspace is also growing at a torrid pace, with Q1 revenues at $119.6 million, up from $75.2 million in the same period a year ago. There are 33,000 customers.

However, Rackspace must deal with tough competitors, such as IBM (NYSE: IBM), AT&T (NYSE: T) and even Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), which offers a variety of cloud-computing services. Furthermore, the slowing economy may put pressure on IT budgets, which could be a problem for Rackspace going forward.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

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