Eight days after it said it was preparing for an IPO on a day-to-day basis, Alien Technology—which had been granted the RFID trading symbol—has given up the attempt, according to a statement the company issued on Aug. 4.
“Alien Technology Corporation today announced that the company has withdrawn its Registration Statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission and has determined not to proceed with the registration and sale of its common stock at this time” the statement said.
Alien CEO Stav Prodromou updated the companys earlier position, which was that they would go public when market conditions improved.
“Alien has decided not to proceed with an IPO at this time due to market conditions,” Prodromou said. “While we are evaluating the options for our future financing needs, we are taking prudent cost reduction actions to continue to effectively manage and grow our business and support our customers going forward.”
The move was expected, as many industry analysts had questioned whether the timing was right for such a move, both because of industry-wide RFID challenges and Alien-specific hurdles.
In a retail technology blog audiocast the week of July 24, a panel of analysts concluded that the IPO had little chance of success.
And earlier this week, IDC analyst Pete Abell—who Alien officials had criticized for being too harsh—pointed to this weeks announcement by Texas Instruments of its new UHF RFID chip and said that it “really nails the coffin closed on Aliens IPO.”
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The fact that Alien is the first pureplay RFID vendor to try and go public —not to mention the fact that it won the heretofore-thought-to-be-coveted RFID trading symbol—made it an easy symbol for the RFID market in general.
A year or so ago, that would have been a positive force. Today, however, its a very mixed bag.
Aliens IPO had been aimed at raising about $100 million, but its original offering documents raised concerns because of the IPO-candid way the company had of discussing its inability to accurately predict the market and its own sales.
Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.
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