SecureWorks Corp, a cybersecurity company owned by Dell Inc, is planning to go public this week in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a US technology company this year, after the slowest start for offerings since the recession.
The Atlanta, Georgia-based company, which says it has served more than 4,200 customers in 59 countries, is seeking to raise as much as US$157.5 million in an IPO scheduled to price yesterday after markets close.
While SecureWorks, which provides software to prevent and detect security breaches, would be the first US tech IPO of this year, it should not be confused with start-ups garnering billion-dollar valuations, said Kaylan Tildsley, a partner at Triton Research.
SecureWorks is a more mature, slow-growth business, whose IPO might not be an indicator for tech offerings in general, Tildsley said.
It’s “an old tech company,” said Tildsley, whose firm analyzes tech companies preparing to go public. “It doesn’t fit the stereotype.”
FireEye Inc, which SecureWorks lists as a competitor in its prospectus, went public in 2013 and has dropped about 16 percent since it began trading.
Palo Alto Networks Inc, another rival, sold shares in an IPO in 2012. The stock has more than tripled.
SecureWorks is offering 9 million Class A shares for US$15.5 to US$17.5 each, regulatory filings showed. Proceeds are to be used for working capital and other uses, including developing new products and possible acquisitions of businesses or technology.
The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dell and Dell’s parent, Denali Holding Inc. Following the offering, Denali is to own all outstanding shares of SecureWorks’ class B common stock, representing about 86 percent of total outstanding common shares, and about 98 percent of the combined voting power, according to the prospectus.
In October last year, Dell agreed to buy EMC Corp for about US$67 billion in the largest technology acquisition ever.
There have been 12 US IPOs this year, excluding special-purpose acquisition companies, closed-end funds and real-estate investment trusts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That is the slowest pace since the financial crisis.
Still, there are signs of life. Bats Global Markets Inc completed an IPO last week, pricing its shares at the top of the marketed range. The stock surged 21 percent in its debut.
The other companies that have gone public this year have been in the healthcare industry.
MGM Growth Properties LLC, a real-estate investment trust, raised more than US$1 billion in its IPO on Tuesday and climbed 4.8 percent in its first day of trading on Wednesday.
For the year ended on Jan. 29, SecureWorks posted a loss of US$72.4 million on net revenue of US$339.5 million. That compares with a loss of about US$38 million in the year-earlier period, on net revenue of US$262 million.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained