Special Situation: SolarWinds IPO

Article Excerpt

SOLARWINDS CORP. $14 (New York symbol SWI; Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 301.9 million; Market cap: $4.2 billion; No dividends paid; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; wwwsolarwinds.com) makes software that helps businesses monitor their computer networks (including cloud-based systems) for potential problems. The company lets customers download trial versions of its products for free. Many of those prospective customers tend to buy the full version of the software as well as other products. On October 23, 2018, SolarWinds completed an initial public offering of 25.0 million shares at $15.00 each. The company used the net proceeds of $353.0 million to repay $315.0 million of its total outstanding debt of $2.2 billion, as of September 30, 2018. (At the same time, it held cash of $302.1 million.) SolarWinds has built a strong business: it now has 275,000 customers in 190 countries. However, it faces strong competition from much larger firms such as IBM and CA Technologies. We don’t recommend SolarWinds. SolarWinds…