GoPro announced the pricing of its initial public offering (IPO) of a total of 17.8 million shares on Wednesday, June 25, priced at $24 each. The company and its existing shareholders had initially offered the shares from $21 to $24. GoPro sold 8.9 million shares in the IPO with its shareholders offering the remainder.
Some of GoPro's selling stockholders include Riverwood Capital LP, Sageview Capital Partners LP and Foxconn Technology Group. The company's prospectus also reveals that CEO Nicholas Woodman, the biggest stake holder along with his family with 49 percent, and Neil Dana are also looking to sell stock. Moreover, the selling shareholders also approved of a 30-day option for the underwriters to buy supplementary 2.67 million shares of Class A common stock.
"The sale raised $427 million. That could increase to $491 million if underwriters exercise an option to buy additional shares, which would mark the largest consumer-electronics IPO on record," said Dealogic
The GoPro shares will begin trading under the ticker "GPRO" on NASDAQ from Thursday, June 26, valued at $24 per share, making GoPro's valuation $3 billion.
Established in 2004, the San Mateo, California-based company is popular for its no-fuss Hero line-up of waterproof cameras. The compact cameras are popular with extreme sports enthusiasts in particular owing to its ruggedness and can even record HD videos.
"We believe that the growing adoption of our capture devices and the engaging content they enable, position GoPro to become an exciting new media company," reveals the company in the prospectus.
Based on GoPro's IPO documents, the company has shown successive revenue growth in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The company whose cameras are deployed by the likes of ESPN and Discovery Channel, generated $985.7 million in revenue in 2013, a substantial growth from $526 million and $234.2 million in 2012 and 2011, respectively.
However, in Q1 2014, GoPro's sales revenue was $235.7 million, a decrease of by 8 percent when compared to Q1 2013, which the company attributes to production problems.
With the earnings of the IPO, GoPro intends to pay off the debt owed to its lead underwriters like JP Morgan, Citigroup Inc. and Barclays Plc.
(techtimes)
