Crocs Goes Public; Investors Go Crazy - NewWest (Missoula,MT)
"There's the delectable scent of money in the air in Boulder today, as the long-awaited initial public offering of Crocs, the rubber-clog company based just up the road in Niwot, has gone off like gangbusters.
The stock (ticker symbol CROX) was priced at $21 a share, already above its original price range of $13-$15, and opened at $30. It has since climbed as much as 40 percent. Crocs founder George Boedecker Jr. and his partner, high school chum Lyndon Hanson, both Boulder natives, sold about half the shares on the open market and half to friends and family, which means the local Land Rover dealer can expect a busy weekend.
Crocs is one of only a handful of companies to see their share price actually open above a forecast price that had already been raised. After the roadshow, in which Crocs executive toured to promote the IPO to big investors, the number of shares was raised by 10 percent to 9.9 million and the price went up to $19-$20.
I've expressed my slight doubts about Crocs – essentially a footwear fad – as a long-term company. The company holds a patent not on the shoes' distinctive design but on the material, a rubbery closed-cell resin. Crocs is said to be looking for other applications for the stuff, while much cheaper knockoffs fill the discount aisle at Target. Sources on both Wall Street and Pearl Street also harbor some concerns about the company's phenomenal growth curve.
But this is not a day for skepticism. Those of us not in on the stock rush can only look on and congratulate the entrepreneurs behind Crocs – and hope for some economic runoff effect."
Read the entire article, Crocs Goes Public; Investors Go Crazy, written by Richard Martin for NewWest (Missoula,MT) at (http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/6037/C94/L94).
