CANBERRA: Australian cloud accounting and bookkeeping software provider MYOB is gearing up for its AU$833 million return to public trading on Monday, May 4.
The company, which is listing publicly on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), announced in a statement (PDF) that it had successfully completed its “bookbuild” for the IPO.
The final share price for the offering came to AU$3.65 each, with 228.3 million shares issued or sold under the offer, and total proceeds of the offer coming in at AU$833.1 million.
The expected value of the offering is on the upper end of the forecast range of AU$831.7 million to AU$833.8 million, the company outlined in its prospectus in March, when it first announced that it had filed for the IPO.
The successful completion of the IPO will see the company claim a market capitalisation of AU$2.13 billion, with its current owner, United States-based private asset management firm Bain Capital, retaining a controlling 57 percent stake in the company.
MYOB’s relisting on Monday will not be the first time the company has appeared on the ASX. It was listed on the exchange in 1999, and was publicly traded for a decade.
Bain Capital bought MYOB for $1.3 billion in 2011 from Australia’s Archer Capital and other shareholders, which collectively completed a takeover bid of the company in 2009, returning it to private ownership following its initial listing on the ASX.
Since falling into the hands of Bain Capital, and particularly over the past couple of years, MYOB has been investing heavily in developing new software and services, building out its product range, and racing towards the provision of cloud-based services.
“Listing on Monday will be a proud day for the whole MYOB team,” said MYOB CEO Tim Reed. “In the past six years as a private company, we’ve transformed MYOB into a wonderfully innovative business that continues to focus on the needs and challenges of SMEs.
“We will welcome our new investors to participate with us in our growth as more and more small businesses head to the cloud to manage their accounts,” he said.
The company has had New Zealand-based cloud accounting software player Xero biting into its market share in Australia.
In August last year, MYOB revealed that it had pumped more than AU$100 million into research and development over the past three years — with AU$40 million of that sum spent just in the financial year ending in 2014 — in a bid to grow its cloud-based services.
Meanwhile, Xero, which is dual listed in Australia and New Zealand, has faced questions from the ASX after it reported a net loss after tax of NZ$69.5 million for the year ending March 2015 — a figure that was well out of line with estimates.
In response, Xero said that it is currently an early stage, high-growth, loss-making software-as-a-service company, and its performance relating to stock price should not be based on earnings and profit, but rather on other indicators such as customer growth and revenue.
“Loss is less fundamental to the assessment of performance, as significant investment is required upfront to attain customers and drive future revenues in order to adequately capitalise on the growth opportunity and recurring revenue business model,” it said in a statement (PDF).
According to its latest quarterly cash flow report (PDF), published on Thursday, it reported a net negative operating cash flow of NZ$12.2 million for the three-month period, but also recorded an 82 percent increase in payments from operating activities compared to the corresponding period the prior year.
