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Martha Stewart IPO at $18
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October 18, 1999: 6:19 p.m. ET
Doyenne of home furnishings prices 7.2M shares at top of raised range
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Martha Stewart found the right recipe for Wall Street Monday, as her highly awaited initial public offering priced Monday at $18 per share, at the top of a raised $16 to $18 range.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., the publisher of the monthly Martha Stewart Living, priced 7.2 million shares to raise $120.5 million. The lead underwriter is Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and the stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MSO".
The company raised its expected price range to $16 to $18 late Monday, after an original estimate for a range of $13 to $15 per share.
The doyenne of homemakers has regrouped a variety of her name-branded ventures under that corporate roof, including her "askMartha" radio show and a cable-TV program "From Martha's Kitchen."
Martha Stewart
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Thursday, the company plans to use some $41.7 million of the proceeds to buy shares of Time Publishing Ventures Inc., a unit of Time Inc., as part of a prior agreement. Time and CNNfn are both owned by Time Warner Inc.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins recently bought a 5 percent stake in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for $25 million.
On a pro forma basis, as if had it been operating publicly, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia earned a net income of $13 million last year, on revenue of $180 million. For the first six months this year, the company earned pro forma net of $7.4 million, up 7.5 percent from the first six months of 1998.
The company earned about 18 percent of its operating income last year through its licensing deal with Kmart (KM), the nation's No. 3 retailer, Ms. Stewart endorses its bed and bath products.
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