Uptempo start for WANdisco

WANdisco, a California-based collaboration software developer with operations in Sheffield, has enjoyed a solid first week of its life on AIM.

The stock made its debut on June 1st after raising around £15m from a placing of shares at 180p per share. Based on the placing price, the market capitalisation of the stock at the time of admission to AIM was £37m, since when the value of the company has risen above £40m.

The group intends to use the net proceeds of the placing to drive growth by expanding the group's sales force; through the opening of an office in China and targeting the Far East market opportunity; through further product development; reducing the current level of provisions and other payables; general working capital purposes and potentially via complementary technology acquisitions.

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WANdisco, which is an acronym of Wide Area Network Distributed Computing, currently has more than 200 customers globally, a number of which are in the US Fortune 100. Customers include heavy-hitters such as AT&T, Aviva, Barclays, Hewlett-Packard, Honda, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, NCR, Nokia, NTT and Wal-Mart.

The group uses an annual subscription licence model to sell its products, providing a predictable revenue stream and a foundation for further expansion.

Revenue has increased by 30.0% from $3.0m in 2010 to $3.9m in 2011 and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and also before share based payments and exceptional costs has increased from a loss of $0.8m in 2010 to a profit of $0.2m in 2011.

Panmure Gordon acted as nominated adviser (Nomad) and broker to the group.

JH