IPO of openBC/Xing - worth to sign on?
Now it’s official. Last Friday, 24th of November openBC which just relaunched it’s social networking business under the new brand Xing.com declared it’s IPO for 7th of Dezember 2006. The signing period is from 4th-6th of Dezember. As a premium-member they offer you a preferred assignment of their new stocks.
I have been a premium-member for over 2 years now. As an entrepreneur I see several values Xing provides as helping you to find new employees or freelancers, to identify the right contact persons at potential customers or partners, to keep your addressbook state of the art, share contacts and information. But I’m not sure if EUR 10 Mio. in sales justifies a valuation of EUR 250+ Mio. as their are rumors that openBC wants to offer 40% for at least EUR 100 Mio. in cash. This puts the value of it’s 150.000 premium members at EUR 1.667 each, or above 20 years of their annual fee. So, what do you think? Is it worth to sign on?