French PC manufacturer Cibox-LCI SA is planning an initial public offering (IPO) to be followed by a listing on the Paris Bourse’s Second Marche in May. Cibox claims to be the number-two player in the desktop market in France, behind Packard Bell but ahead of Compaq, IBM and HP. It has achieved this position with a business model based on offering low-priced PCs in major retail outlets such as supermarkets. It also launched in January a special offer called Netclic, offering a cheap PC ($330) with which the customer also acquired a two-year paid subscription to internet services.
Cibox is now considering a similar scheme with Infonie, an ISP in which, like Cibox itself, software developer Dassault Multimedia is a minority shareholder. We are studying ways of finding synergies between the companies, commented Dassault Multimedia CEO Thierry Dassault. The company sold 130,000 units and reported sales of FF806m ($132m) last year, representing an increase of 40% on 1997. Its net profit came to FF22.1m ($3.6m), a 42% increase on the previous year. Cibox says it wants to raise between $8m and $16m with the offering, with which to improve its debt profile and pursue a strategy of international expansion, possibly via an association with another PC manufacturer of similar size.
