Almost as quiet as the proverbial mouse, gay Adult Internet media and services company PlanetOut became the first known gay-directed business to hit the stock market, launching an initial public offering October 14 of about 4.65 million shares on the high-tech NASDAQ stock composite.
The company picked an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, LGBT, as its trading symbol. Day one of PlanetOut trading began at $9.26 per share and closed at $10.40, and the IPO included an option to its underwriters to buy 697,500 shares of common PlanetOut stock to cover any over-allotments, PlanetOut said announcing the IPO.
PlanetOut officials including chief executive Lowell Selvin are not yet commenting publicly about the decision to bring PlanetOut public, citing security regulations barring the company’s management from discussing it during the first several weeks following an IPO.
The company told the Securities and Exchange Commission in a pre-IPO filing that they hoped to raise $39 million, which they plan to use to boost traffic at signature portals Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, as well as hiking the number of subscribers using their personal ads service. PlanetOut showed a first profitable quarter in 2003 but net losses over the last three years of $416,000 on revenues of $11.6 million, according to company filings.
Stockbroker Walter Schubert, founder of the Gay Financial Network, told reporters that PlanetOut’s longevity and stability, which allowed it to get a NASDAQ listing, breaks new ground. "For years now, we've heard about the gay market and heard about how lucrative it is," he was quoted as saying. "Here now is the first publicly traded company where those who are interested in taking advantage of an investment opportunity that's part of that market would find a pretty good opportunity."
