For the first time in its quarter-century history, enterprise resource planning software maker Lawson Software is making a public offering. The St. Paul, Minn., company announced today the initial public offering of 14,000,000 shares of its common stock.
Lawsons shares went off this morning on Nasdaq at $14 a share, according to company officials.
Lawson offered 13,675,000 shares, while shareholders offered 325,000 shares for sale.
Lawsons selling shareholders have also granted the companys underwriters an option to purchase an additional 2,100,000 shares to cover over any allotments.
For the nine months ending Feb. 28, 2002, revenues at Lawson rose 21 percent to $268.2 million, according to Bloomberg.com. Net income totaled $7.6 million, vs. a loss of $5.1 million.
Lawson will report its second quarter earnings later this month, according to officials. The company expects to raise $200 million with the IPO and will use the proceeds across all departments, according to officials.
“This aligns with our strategy of growth,” said a Lawson spokesperson. “We can only grow from within for so long. We compete in our marketplace with PeopleSoft [Inc.], SAP [AG] and Oracle. [Corp.]. Frankly, its time to step up.”