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Rocket Fuel is expected to begin trading this week and has raised the target price for its upcoming IPO to a range of $27 to $29 per share, up from $24 to $27. The late boost may be due to heightened interest from investors in the programmatic ad story — versus the broader ad-tech category.
In an updated S-1 filing, the company provided color on heightened interest.
“As discussed above, in late August 2013, in consultation with the underwriters, we determined our anticipated offering price range to be $24.00 to $27.00 per share. Subsequently, in mid-September 2013, after a series of meetings with potential investors, the pricing committee of our board of directors met with the underwriters and members of senior management and determined that, as a result of the level of interest in our proposed offering from potential investors, we should increase the price range for this offering to $27.00 to $29.00 per share.”
Rocket Fuel’s stock has been approved for listing on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “FUEL.” AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka reported this morning the company and its underwriters have targeted a Friday public offering, and AdExchanger sources confirmed the IPO is imminent.
When you write an article like this, for the stock price to make any sense, you need to talk about the financial multiples, otherwise outsiders really cannot tell whether the stock price is high or low. At a simple level, one would want to know the trailing and forward EBITDA, and multiple that by the comparable multiples for this type of company — I would guess that would be around 8-10X. (Obviously you adjust up or down for cash).
Otherwise when you talk about stock price, the reader cannot really get any sense of is it expensive or not.