Zillow.com experienced a prime-time Northwest summer sunbreak in its first day of NASDAQ stock market trading. Not a cloud in the sky appeared on its IPO opening day!
The household valuation and neighborhood networking leader opened at nearly triple its $20 IPO price and closed the day at $35 per share. That strong endorsement by investors gave the Seattle real estate company a valuation of more than $1 billion, 35 times the company’s 2010 revenue.
Is the mojo back in Internet IPO’s? Facebook dampened some of the season’s early enthusiasm, but Zillow is showing the way back out of the wilderness.
It’s not often a new pricing gains at least 49 percent in first-day of trading. Investors have flocked to a limited number of Internet offerings, focusing primarily on those that have outpaced the average gain of 7 percent in all U.S. IPOs in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Zillow joined website operators such as LinkedIn Corp., Yandex NV and HomeAway Inc. in far exceeding that performance — and investors rallied around its net worth.
For buyers in the IPO, Zillow was also cheaper. At $20 a share, Zillow was valued at about 12 times 2011 sales, assuming revenue for the first quarter holds true for the rest of year. That compares with ratios of 26 for LinkedIn, 13 for Pandora and 16 for HomeAway, as of yesterday’s closing share prices.
According to Zillow’s Earnings Report:
— Average monthly unique users grew 93 percent to a record 20.8 million in the second quarter of 2011 compared to 10.8 million average monthly unique users for the same period in 2010.
— July 2011 marked another record traffic month with 23.2 million unique users clicking on Zillow’s websites and mobile applications, a 98 percent increase from July 2010.
— Zillow was used on a mobile device 11.9 million times in July, with 28 homes viewed every second. [24×7]
Seattle Great Wheel Grand Opening Set for Friday June 29th
The Seattle waterfront Ferris Wheel will begin its gyroscopic rotations on Friday, June 29th. Not everyone is enamored with the project and the way it transforms the local seascape.
At press time, a poll on SeattleBubble.com, a site which focuses on real estate news and commentary, indicated 55% of their readership considered the wheel “Lame” as compared to “Awesome.”
For a click-and-drag, 360-degree view of the construction site where the great ferris wheel grew skyward visit here.
Or learn more at the “Great Wheel” Website at http://seattlegreatwheel.com/ .
New Seattle Hotel Booking Resource
Just in time for summer tourism, the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau has unveiled an enhanced hotel booking resource for visitors. Promoting the tagline: “Seattle hotels at the lowest rates,” SCVB is partnering with Regatta Travel Solutions and launching http://www.visitseattle.org/stay. [24×7]
