VALLEY FIRM DELAYS INITIAL STOCK OFFERING.Byline: Deborah Adamson Daily News Staff Writer While Wall Street sold and bought frantically fran·tic adj. 1. Highly excited with strong emotion or frustration; frenzied: frantic with worry. 2. earlier this week, leading to a record dive and rebound rebound (rē´bownd), n/v 1. a recovery from illness. n 2. an outbreak of fresh reflex activity after withdrawal of a stimulus rebound adjective , a Calabasas-based Internet company sat on its hands and waited. On Village Communications Inc., which is developing an online national Yellow Pages-style directory service, was scheduled to go public Tuesday. But sharp swings in the market Monday and Tuesday convinced officials to postpone post·pone tr.v. post·poned, post·pon·ing, post·pones 1. To delay until a future time; put off. See Synonyms at defer1. 2. To place after in importance; subordinate. the company's initial public offering until next week. ``Nobody would want to take a chance on risky stocks when markets are so unstable unstable, adj 1. not firm or fixed in one place; likely to move. 2. capable of undergoing spontaneous change. A nuclide in an unstable state is called radioactive. An atom in an unstable state is called excited. ,'' said Deborah Munroe, managing editor of IPO (Initial Public Offering) The first time a company offers shares of stock to the public. While not a computer term per se, many founders, employees and insiders of computer companies have found this acronym more exciting than any tech term they ever heard. Monitor, an Internet IPO tracking service in Calabasas. ``IPOs are risky. They are not sure bets.'' On Village will offer 1.9 million units - which comprise a share and a warrant - at $5 each. It expects to receive $9.5 million from the offering, which will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. D.H. Blair, a New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of firm that handles many small cap stocks, is the lead underwriter Lead underwriter The head of a syndicate of financial firms that are sponsoring an initial public offering of securities or a secondary offering of securities. Could also apply to bond issues. . On Village officials said Thursday they won't comment on the IPO, citing Securities and Exchange Commission restrictions. It's a precaution taken by regulators to prevent companies from talking up their stock. Tom Taulli, an IPO Monitor market analyst, said it's not surprising that On Village delayed its offering. The companies hardest hit on Monday were high-tech firms, he said, in part because they had experienced a big run-up in price. If On Village went public as scheduled, he said, it might not have gotten an enthusiastic welcome from the investment community because it's a high-tech stock High-tech stock Stocks of companies operating in high-technology fields. . Being a small firm makes it even tougher. ``The smaller the company is, the more likely they'll wait,'' Taulli said. ``I won't be surprised if they'll extend it a bit more.'' On Village, established in November 1995, had 1996 revenues of $65,000. It had a net loss of $578,000. However, unprofitability does not doom a successful IPO. Taulli pointed out that Yahoo Inc. - an Internet search engine - had one of the richest IPOs in recent years even though the company was losing money. Besides, On Village is tapping the expanding market of Yellow Page listings over the Internet, he added. Taulli believes that this niche, long monopolized by the phone companies, shows promise. Recently, Yahoo! bought an Internet Yellow Pages firm. To be sure, On Village faces tough competition. On the other hand, ``it could be a very hot company,'' Taulli said. |
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