Just weeks ago, right before Facebook’s much anticipated initial public offering, Kayak announced that they were ready to go public in a deal that would raise as much as $150 million. The plan was to let the mighty momentum from the Facebook IPO carry their offering into success.
Today, the Connecticut-based online-travel service announced plans to postpone their roadshow and subsequent IPO. No doubt this is in response to Facebook’s monumental flop with their IPO. In fact, Kayak’s IPO was set to be led by Morgan Stanley, the same bank who was the major underwriter on Facebook’s IPO. This in itself appears to be a grand mistake in retrospect, as Facebook’s deal had an adverse effect on the small investors who were supposed to widely embrace the offering.
This isn’t the first time Kayak has put off going public. After filing for an IPO back at the end of 2010, Kayak decided to hold off after they witnessed the tech market take a nosedive. At that time they were hoping to raise funds to bolster their sites capabilities in order to keep up with a new threat brought by Google with the acquisition of ITA, a site previously partnered with Kayak.
Currently, Kayak is in good shape financially and just experienced a 39% increase in revenue with a net income of $4.1 million. Looking back on Kayak’s first IPO delay, I would guess they just don’t feel the timing is right given the debacle with Facebook.
Here’s a quote from late 2010 by Kayak’s chief marketing officer, Robert Birge regarding their decision to delay the IPO the first time:
“Some companies have no choice but to move forward into…unsettled markets,”
“We are happy to wait; it’s just that simple.”
If they are waiting for the right time, it may never come but, we’ll keep you informed if they decide to move forward with the IPO in the near future. In the meantime, you can read all the news from the Facebook IPO debacle here.
