Hey, LinkedIn: Call Your IPO Bankers
Facebook is smart to put off an IPO until 2009: Mark Zuckerberg needs to stay CEO and he’s too young to be a public CEO. Also, the lesson Google taught us was that it's smart to wait until you are so dominant that you, not Wall Street, can call the shots.
But LinkedIn is another story. The company has been positioning itself for a late ’08 or 2009 IPO, but it needs to move more quickly.
There are three reasons to go public:
If LinkedIn acts now, the Facebook effect will be temporary. LinkedIn will never be as popular as Facebook, but when it comes to professional needs like job hunting, it’s a far better tool than Facebook. And LinkedIn actually has a real, profitable business from premium services, a rarity in Web 2.0 and one that could make it more recession proof. Indeed, when 1,000 Yahoos get canned next month, they’re going to need LinkedIn.
So LinkedIn should go public now--and intentionally underprice the stock--before it loses any more mind share to Facebook. An underpriced stock would soar on the first day, prompting every market news organization on the planet to gawk in amazement (who knew investors thought so highly of LinkedIn!). All the free advertising would drive millions more users, and the golden glow, cash pile, and stock currency would allow LinkedIn to compete far more effectively.
See Also: LinkedIn Actually Not So Hot: Revenue Falling Short of Expectations
SAI contributor Sarah Lacy has been covering finance and high tech in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, most recently as a staff reporter for BusinessWeek. Her book on the rise of Web 2.0, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, will be published by Gotham Books May 2008. She is co-host of Yahoo! Finance's TechTicker and writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called "Valley Girl."
But LinkedIn is another story. The company has been positioning itself for a late ’08 or 2009 IPO, but it needs to move more quickly.
There are three reasons to go public:
- money,
- a stock currency for acquisitions, and
- a huge marketing event.
If LinkedIn acts now, the Facebook effect will be temporary. LinkedIn will never be as popular as Facebook, but when it comes to professional needs like job hunting, it’s a far better tool than Facebook. And LinkedIn actually has a real, profitable business from premium services, a rarity in Web 2.0 and one that could make it more recession proof. Indeed, when 1,000 Yahoos get canned next month, they’re going to need LinkedIn.
So LinkedIn should go public now--and intentionally underprice the stock--before it loses any more mind share to Facebook. An underpriced stock would soar on the first day, prompting every market news organization on the planet to gawk in amazement (who knew investors thought so highly of LinkedIn!). All the free advertising would drive millions more users, and the golden glow, cash pile, and stock currency would allow LinkedIn to compete far more effectively.
See Also: LinkedIn Actually Not So Hot: Revenue Falling Short of Expectations
SAI contributor Sarah Lacy has been covering finance and high tech in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, most recently as a staff reporter for BusinessWeek. Her book on the rise of Web 2.0, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, will be published by Gotham Books May 2008. She is co-host of Yahoo! Finance's TechTicker and writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called "Valley Girl."
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No company would really want to let the market know that it was underpricing its IPO -that would be seen as a desperation move. Hardly likely to engender confidence in the market in your management's ability to deliver on their strategy.
The investment bankers will value the company based on several metrics and reach an agreed value. They will then bookbuild by going to see institutional investors to convince them that the company is actually worth that price, and then take commitments to buy shares at that price or price range.
In reality, a company is usually priced a little on the low side compared to the banks range of valuations for two reasons:
- Valuation is not a science and different metrics and different assumptions can lead to wildly differing valuations. A web business is even harder to value - what would you have paid for Google on its IPO?
- The investment bank does not want to burn the brokers and fund managers that buy into the IPO. Neither does it or the SEC want a disorderly aftermarket - a disorderly aftermarket would mean the share price falling quickly or rising quickly after the IPO. In the first case, the brokers and fund managers would be burned, in the second case the existing shareholders would feel robbed. The bank would look incompetent as well and a bunch of corporate attorneys would get rich.
When you look at the quality of the investors behind LI, you can be sure that things will be done properly. There will be no be no 'intentional underpricing' (other than what is normal for the market).
I don't have access to LI's financial statements but the noises coming from their PR suggest that they are generating cash. They are still growing fast. If they have enough cash for their working capital requirements from cashflow and their investors then why rush to market.
The VCs will sit on the Board and see the management accounts and know the strategy - If they think more value can be generated by waiting then I would tend to trust their judgement.
An acquisition is a difficult thing to do for social networks. One of LI's rivals is wasting a lot of money on acquisitions at the moment. What does buying a social network achieve. Say the network claims 100m users - that is probably 30% exaggeration in any event :). Of the 70m that remain, probably another third never use the network or are fake accounts or duplicate accounts. From the remaining users, either active or passive users, you can only move those users (in accordance to strict EU Data Protection Laws) if the users sign in and accept Ts&Cs that let you move them to a new platform. Otherwise you are stuck with two separate platforms to maintain.
Finally, I think Facebook is not a competitor to LI and other business networks. At least not in its current form. It is banned by many businesses as it encourages users to waste time on vampire applications and social chit chat. It has privacy issues such as other people being able to read messages you leave for a third party. Finally, it does not have an effective search tool say to find a shipping lawyer in Milan and get a recommendation on him/her.
Many social networks are a fad thing that will wear off as the users get bored, find the new thing, or just grow up.
Hoping for a "pop" via a mispriced IPO is just buying press articles of questionable value using the existing shareholders' hard-earned money. Would you have advised them to buy a superbowl ad? Probably not. But that ad would be far cheaper (and would reach far more people) than giving a multi-million dollar handout to the bankers and the large institutional buyers via an undervalued offering.
Also, institutional investors aren't that stupid--they see Facebook too. What's more, if LinkedIn is really under threat from Facebook, they'd be much better off dealing with that in private than with quarterly earnings to report and a public-company-level G&A expense drag. Companies that are facing real trouble (of which LinkedIn isn't necessarily one) are typically better off solving their problems out of public view.
If the company is consistently generating cash and its existing investors are itchy, there are other options such a leveraged recap or a secondary buyout.
And while five social networks compete for leadership in social networking, LinkedIn is the runaway leader among business networks. Due to its utility, LinkedIn will also earn more per member than any of the social networks once it has built out its applications. So, I would not trade my stock for that of Facebook.
I know lots of professionals who are on Facebook, and virtually none have advanced their career with it. In fact, most who are married and have kids are finding it a bore as their social needs are already met.
I'd rather have LinkedIn wait with an IPO until the Facebook fad is over. Remember Friendster and MySpace? Churn is built into the model for social networks. While business people are slower to adopt things (they join for utility rather than fun), they also are less likely to leave (think Microsoft).
And, as for December, that is always a slow month for LinkedIn--just wait for the January/February numbers and you'll see the steady progress continued. And LinkedIn has not yet tapped its potential in terms of international expansion (although it is doing very well in western Europe already).
Are you serious about undertaking an IPO as a marketing event and issue shares at a "discount" ensuring further media coverage on the opening day jump? Surely there are more cost effective and sustainable methods to growing LinkedIn's user base? Maybe a Superbowl ad?
i agree it has to capitalize on the stock currency, cash and marketing of going public-- but i think it's the quickest way to breathe life and viability into this "mature" social network. linkedin in '09 looks a lot more like classmates to me.
Facebook is *not* ultimately a threat to the core of LinkedIn's business, as too many people like the idea of maintaining distinct public/professional and private/personal profiles.
Yes I know that some of the (more juvenile) Valley tastemakers have ported their professional networks to Facebook. But not even Accel partners have made a full-on switch to the exclusion of LinkedIn. Everybody keeps an active LinkedIn profile, and everyone I know who uses both tends to keep LinkedIn business-focused and Facebook more personal.
Point being that LinkedIn is -- and I predict it will remain -- the premiere B2B networking tool, w/ the associated B2B media and commerce value of that position.
There are 5-10 large and logical acquirors for such a business, and 1) I don't think market conditions will overly affect how they value LinkedIn (as the value of B2B media is much less subject to macroeconomic conditions than consumer media, particularly emerging consumer media); and 2) I think LinkedIn is much more valuable to these acquirors than it would be to public market investors. I.e. LinkedIn's existing employees and investors are most likely to maximize their exit value via M&A and not IPO.
It's almost like a classmates.com, it only has 1 good idea. You may go to the site regularly during a job search or even prospecting for new biz (it's a GREAT names directory) but otherwise there is very little reason to visit the site everyday or week like Facebook.
The message portal costs money and there's no reason someone should pay when they can be just as networked over at Facebook for free.
Sure Facebook is struggling with creating a profitable business around social networking but it won't be long until they figure it out.
Linked in on the other hand probably won't ever figure it out.
There's one problem with your advice: LinkedIn's a dog. Revenue has been falling short of expectations, and the company is already an afterthought. Unless the IPO is REALLY underpriced, there's a big risk that the market will pee all over it--and then so much for your huge marketing event.
If LinkedIn's revenue is really ramping, then, yes, they should absolutely get on the horn to their bankers. If they're still paring back their own expectations, however, they should be thankful for their anonymity. The last thing they need is to pull a Limelight.