Vonage Holdings Corporation (VG)
Vonage had it’s IPO in May 2006 and has gone down ever since. Today it made the top of the New All-Time Lows List.
Longtime Vonage customers were allowed to purchase shares before the IPO at $16-18 per share.
Because much of our success is attributable to our customers, we have asked the underwriters of the IPO to reserve shares of common stock for sale to certain Vonage customers at the IPO price in a Directed Share Program.
Today the stock traded under $4.
Bill Mann rightly said back in May that this was the most successful IPO in many years:
In every other form of commerce, “success” is determined by someone’s ability to generate profits, or to sell something for more than it is worth. Vonage’s management and underwriters convinced a bunch of people and institutions that a company worth roughly the price of a Happy Meal should be valued on the market at $2.6 billion!
I stand in awe of this level of salesmanship. I’ll bet they are high-fivin’ all around in the executive suites in Holmdel. After all, they took a company that has lost nearly half a billion dollars from its inception (with more than 25% coming in the last three months alone), $250 million in debt, and no clear plan to profitability, and they turned it into a mid-cap.
