The initial public offering of online music retailer N2K Inc got away successfully on Friday, which will be a relief for a number of partners of the company who were depending on a successful IPO to fund deals between N2K and themselves. N2K sold 3.3 million shares at $19 at the top of its $17 to $19 target range raising $63.3m before expenses. It also sold 169,800 shares to America Online Inc as part of its deal, whereby N2K becomes the exclusive music retailer on AOL’s MusicSpace and within applicable music area on AOL. The shares closed at $24.25 close to the day’s high of $24.75. As part of the AOL deal, N2K will give AOL a minimum of $18m over three years, with the first $12m of it coming by December 1 this year. It has similar deals with Microsoft Corp’s WebTV Networks Inc and @Home Network Corp. The New York company sold about 28% for of its stock in the offering, which will also be used for debt repayments and other marketing deals. In the quarter ending March 31 it lost $4.5m net on revenues of $1.1m. Its balance sheet showed cash of $1.1m at the end of the quarter, but obviously it now has a lot more.
