By Calvin Biesecker
Cross Match Technologies yesterday said it has decided to go forward with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of common stock two months after the biometric technology company postponed plans for a stock offering amid turmoil in the financial markets.
Now the company says the markets are calm and yesterday it amended its original IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to take the company public. Cross Match originally filed with SEC to go public in May and then postponed those plans in August. The company also wants to get the IPO process rolling out now because otherwise year end financial audits would likely force a postponement of the offering into late winter or early spring of 2008.
In its amended IPO filing, Cross Match pegged the planned offering price of its stock at between $13 and $17 per share with plans to offer just over 9.4 million shares. The original offering price was between $14 and $16 per share, according to a company spokeswoman. Cross Match would trade under the stock ticker symbol CROS.
Cross Match estimates that it will generate $115.4 million through the pending IPO, assuming a $15 per share offering price. Proceeds from the IPO will go toward paying off $4 million in debt as well as fund future acquisitions, working capital needs and other general corporate purposes.
The amended filing includes Cross Match’s financial results for the first half of this year, which show substantially narrowed net losses compared to the first six months of 2006. For the first six months of 2007, Cross Match lost $302,000 versus a $4.7 million loss in the same period a year ago. Importantly, the company actually turned in an operating profit of $1.2 million in the first half of this year versus a $3.3 million loss for the first half of 2006.
Sales for the first half of 2007 grew 29 percent to $46.9 million from $36.2 million. Most of that revenue, $42.2 million is from product sales while the rest is from services. Cross Match said product revenues were up mainly on an increase in 10-print fingerprint devices sales and to a lesser extent on single fingerprint device sales. Foreign exchange rates also positively impacted first half growth. These increases more than offset a decline in palmprint device sales.
Cross Match said that 31 percent of first half 2007 sales were to various branches of the United States government. About 38 percent of sales were to international customers. Most of Cross Match’s sales are related to its fingerprint devices.
Cross Match also touched on several recent orders that contributed to first half sales this year, including $2.7 million from the United Kingdom for UKvisas, $3.4 million from the U.S. Department of States Office of Consular Affairs, $2.9 million from the U.S. Navy, and $600,000 from the Swedish Migration Board. Cross Match said it expects additional orders for products and services from these customers in the near future.