Initial public offering goes well as market cap reaches 10 figures
WiseTech Global, the international supply chain and transport information technology (IT) firm founded in Sydney in 1994, has listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with a market capitalisation of more than $1 billion.
It is a stunning launch for the company that earlier this decade supplied technical advice to ATN readers in the IT Wise column, and whose founder and CEO, Richard White, owns 50 per cent.
Of the institutional investors, JP Morgan owns 6.8 per cent and HSBC 2.5 per cent.
About 50 million shares, or around 16 per cent of the firm, were floated in the initial public offering (IPO).
WiseTech opened at $3.35 but has since risen to $3.66 in mid-afternoon trade, though it did reach a high of $3.80 at one point.
The software and services firm has ridden its CargoWise One product into a markets in seven countries, including the US and China.
Now headquartered in the outer-Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, it claims more than 6,000 customers and 150,000 module users across 7,000 sites in more than 115 countries.
In financial results for the past three years released today, WiseTech reports a 2014-15 financial year annual operating profit of $14.48 million, compared with $13.93 million in 2013-14, $4.67 in 2012-13 and $3 million in 2011-12.
The profits came on revenues of $67.33 million, $53.8 million, $44.38 million and $33.31 million respectively.
Its latest interim results record an operating profit of $6.29 million, compared with $7.196 million in the same period the previous year, but that appears to have been reduced by costs and tax.
However, with DHL added to a customer list that includes Toll and Australia Post and takeovers over the past two years of CompuClearing Outsourcing, Core Freight Systems and Zsoft Shenzhen Software Development Co, the company is forecasting a profit of $13 million on revenues of $102 million and a 32 per cent growth the following financial year.