Danish financial and business software developer Navision Software A/S is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) leading to a listing on the Copenhagen stock exchange on March 29. An international roadshow to accompany the bookbuilding process will kick off in Copenhagen on March 11, continuing on to Edinburgh, London, New York, Boston and Frankfurt, ending on March 25. Navision said it expected the price range to be between DKr105 and DKr125 ($15.33-$18.25). The IPO will involve 6.5 million shares, of which 4 million existing and 2.5 million new ones, with a greenshoe option of 700,000 additional existing shares to cover over-allotments. This would result in a total offering of 28% of the companyÆs shares. Navision vice president for sales and marketing, Rene Stockner said the company will use the funds raised ($38.3m-$45.6m) on expanding its business internationally and strengthening its cash position. Some of our competitors in the US have been telling customers not to buy Navision products, arguing that weÆre a privately-held company without much cash, he explained. The offer is to the general public in Denmark, as well as to institutional investors at home and abroad, and is being managed by Alfred Berg in London (as global coordinator and bookrunner), with Aros Securities bank and BT Alex Brown as joint-lead managers. Navision rejects the epithet æERP vendorÆ not least because there are good reasons not to be compared with the likes of SAP and Baan, but also because it sells into a different market space, namely companies with revenues of between $5m and $250m. Its preferred description of its product, Navision Financials, is that of an æenterprise business solutionÆ. The company had revenues of $38m in its 1997-98 fiscal year (which ended June 30, 1998). For the first half of its current fiscal year (the six months to December 31, 1998), Navision reported a net income up 100% at $7.3m on revenues up 128% at $40m, of which roughly 80% are from markets other than Denmark.
