Inside Loudcloud's IPO
from the ugly-process dept
The Wall Street Journal (reprinted at MSNBC) has a good article looking behind the scenes of the Loudcloud IPO. It’s not a pretty picture. Things seemed to get worse and worse, and very few investors were actually interested. Loudcloud’s management actually had to buy in on shares at the IPO price just to keep it pumped up. Some very small investment firms – who often can’t get the big guys to return their calls – were suddenly fielding calls from Goldman and Morgan Stanley trying to drum up interest in the IPO. I like how at the end some people try to spin it as a successful IPO, even though it’s well below the valuations that the mezzanine round of financers came in at.
