Inside Loudcloud's IPO
from the ugly-process dept
The Wall Street Journal (reprinted at MSNBC) has a good article looking behind the scenes of the Loudcloud IPO. It's not a pretty picture. Things seemed to get worse and worse, and very few investors were actually interested. Loudcloud's management actually had to buy in on shares at the IPO price just to keep it pumped up. Some very small investment firms - who often can't get the big guys to return their calls - were suddenly fielding calls from Goldman and Morgan Stanley trying to drum up interest in the IPO. I like how at the end some people try to spin it as a successful IPO, even though it's well below the valuations that the mezzanine round of financers came in at.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
