Baidu.com Jumps up 300%

In a hot IPO market, five companies priced shares raising $800 million. Baidu.com priced 4 million shares at $27 per share. The Chinese search engine company generated revenue of $14 million with profit of less than $2 million. The company at current stock valuation is worth close to $3.6 billion.

Founded by two American educated two Chinese engineers, Eric Xu and Robin Li, the Chinese search engine company is the most visited search engine site in China.

Google paid $5 million for 2.6% of the company and competes directly with its own site in China. Microsoft and Yahoo are also working on similar search engines for the Chinese market.

At current valuations market is expecting the company to outperform Google in the coming years. Google is trading at 87 times its 2005 earnings and other Chinese portals Sina.com and Sohu.com are trading at 27 times 2005 earnings.

The five and half year old company has turned profitable this year and is likely to grow at more than 100% for the next three years.

Total net revenues increased by 148.6% from RMB17.2 million for the three months ended March, 2004 to RMB42.6 million (US$5.2 million) for the three months ended March, 2005. Net income was RMB2.5 million (US$0.3 million) for the three months ended March, 2005, compared to RMB1.0 million for the three months ended March, 2004.


Other IPOs

AtriCure Inc. priced 4 million shares at $12 per share by UBS. The surgical devices company has grown from less than $2 million in revenue in 2002 to $20 million in 2004. The company lost $1.36 per share in 2004.

Advanced Life Sciences priced 5 million shares at $5 per share by C.E. Unterberg, Towbin. The oncology biotech company has not made money in the last five years of its existence.
Morgan Stanley priced 22.5 million shares at $21 per share of Dresser-Rand Group Inc. The oil drilling equipment company generated $42 million in profit in 2004 and has after the IPO 80 million shares outstanding. The company shares are likely rise if the oil drilling activities stays at the current level.

Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc priced 10.6 million shares at $10 through Morgan Stanley. The company’s chips manage power for mobile phones and other electronic devices. The company generated $1.63 per share earnings in 2004.