DISQUS

VentureBeat: Roundup: Sprint’s WiMax bet, Twitku, VMware’s $750M mistake, Bolt-dead and more

  • Fan of Auction-IPO · 2 years ago
    Interesting point about had VMWare gone the route of Google, which so boldly and successfully bucked the traditional status quo of the investment bankers, with an auction-IPO. I agree. The time is overdue to put the leaching of the investment bankers to pasture and let the real market forces set the value of a given stock. Of course, i-bankers absolutely hate the auction-IPO because it is far more effective and keeps their ability to channel huge chunks of money into their own pockets for the so little work they do.
  • Abhishek · 2 years ago
    Its great to see Sprint going whole hog on WiMax. With their deal with Google I am expecting to see really valuable services come up in the future.

    Here are some of my thoughts:
    http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/08/16/sprints-x...
  • RC · 2 years ago
    Matt,

    You forgot to mention that VMWare gave an extra 4.95 million shares to the underwriters listed as:
    Citi, JPMorgan and Lehman Brothers acted as lead underwriters for the offering. Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Deutsche Bank Securities were also listed as underwriters.

    What a scam this was. The underwriters underprice the IPO and then get to buy these shares at $29 each then sell them for $55+? That's about $125,000,000. Pretty sweet deal. I wonder why the EMC shareholders don't sue the board and underwriters for this?
  • You're wrong · 2 years ago
    RC, the underwriters don't keep that money with the greenshoe option. They sell the extra allocation of shares to the oversubscribed institutional investors at $29, not $55+.
  • You're wrong · 2 years ago
    Fan of the Auction, sure, the dutch auction process is sweet, but not every company has the clout that Google had to hold such an auction and still attract enough subscribers to fill out an entire IPO. Part of the underwriters' job is to go out and line up the institutional investors, which is impossible to do alone if you're not a Google. One could argue that VMWare had the brand, but I would argue that it wasn't enough to fill out an IPO without underwriters' help.