AllTel Corp, Little Rock, Arkansas telephone service operator raised $300m before expenses – as per its shelf registration last month – with an issue of debentures due March 15 2016, via Stephens Inc.
Engineering Animation Inc, Ames, Iowa developer of three- dimensional computer animation products for visualization, animation and graphics applications in commercial markets, got its initial public offering of 2.29m shares, 1.825m of them new, away at $18 per share to raise some $30.5m net to repay debt and for product development, sales and marketing initiatives, and computer and other equipment purchases. The managing underwriters for the offering are J P Morgan Securities Inc and Cowen & Co.
OrCAD Inc, Beaverton, Oregon desktop design automation software company, got its initial public offering of 3.2m shares, 2m new, away at $11.00 per share to raise some $20m net for working capital to fund product development and expansion of international sales. Wessels, Arnold & Henderson LLC and Needham & Co Inc jointly managed the offering.
Sprint Corp’s 360 Communications Inc, formerly Sprint Cellular and soon to be spun off, raised $900m before expenses in a two- part deal consisting of $450m of 7.125% senior notes due March 2003, sold at $99.695% to yield 7.181%; and $450m of 7.5% senior notes due March 2006, at $99.769% to yield 7.533%. Both parts are non-callable for life. The lead manager for the deal was Salomon Brothers Inc.
Novell Inc has announced it will reduce product shipments to allow the channel to get rid of excess levels of stock, a move investment house Morgan Stanley says is a long awaited and pragmatic move to clean up the balance sheet. The reduction in inventory levels will account for up to $200m worth of product. As a result, Morgan Stanley’s technology group has cut its estimates for Novell’s earnings for the financial year to October 1996 from $0.84 to $0.34 and forecasts a loss of between $0.08 to $0.15 in the second quarter. It’s also cut its estimate for Novell’s 1997 earnings to $0.42 per share from $1.05. It gives Novell a year to get its Internet strategy sorted out, observing that the company has networked more people and devices than any company but hasn’t yet figured out a way to turn that into Internet gold. Novell has laid off 625 employees in the last and plans to be down to 6,000 by the end of its second quarter.