Corel: A Re-PO IPO (CREL)

Corel (CREL-NASDAQ) did price its 6.5M share Re-PO at $16.00, but this pricing was at the low-end of the $16.00 to $18.00 range and well under the original $18.00 to $20.00 range. Initially there was demand from software and IT buyers, but that interest largely faded over the last week. Morgan Stanley (lead underwriter), J.P.Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Piper Jaffray, and CIBC were the underwriters.

Most will remember this company as a provider of affordable and easy-to-use productivity and graphics and digital imaging software such as WordPerfect and Paint Shop Pro, which has long been considered a low-end pricing competitor of Microsoft and Adobe. The reason I note this as a 'Re-PO' rather than a true IPO is that this Canadian based software stock was taken private after being a public company for years (old ticker was "CORL" on NASDAQ) and they just filed to come public back at the beginning of this month.

Its FY11/2005 Revenues were $164M and it posted net income of $28M. Despite the company returning to profitability when it was private after years of losses as a public company there just has been very little demand for the stock. There hasn't been much buzz around the company, so we'll have to see if the reduced prices will sniff out any buyers.