Vitacost.com Sets IPO Terms (VITC)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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vitacost logoVitacost.com, Inc. has set the terms for its upcoming IPO.  The online and catalog seller of vitamins, supplements, and other personal care products is selling 11 million shares, with 4,495,987 shares being sold by the company and some 6,504,013 shares are being sold by holders.  The price range has been indicated as $11 to $13 per share, and it will trade under the NASDAQ ticker “VITC.”

The joint book-running managers are Jefferies & Company and Oppenheimer; and co-Managers are listed as Needham & Company and Roth Capital Partners.  The underwriting group was given an overallotment option of up to 1,650,000 shares of common stock, with some 663,322 being from the company and 986,678 shares from holders.

The company’s common stock is listed as 100,000,000 shares authorized, but its market capitalization will be based upon 27,522,712 shares actually issued.   It does have the allowance for preferred stock with a $0.00001 par value listed as 25,000,000 shares authorized, but no preferred shares were issued or outstanding.

The online retailer and direct marketer of health and wellness products sells its dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals, herbs, botanicals, amino acids, metabolites, cosmetics, organic body and personal care products, sports nutrition and health foods.  It sells directly to the public at vitacost.com and catalogs.  It lists some 23,000 SKU products from more than 1,000 third party brands to the likes of New Chapter, Atkins, Nature’s Way, Twinlab, Burt’s Bees and Kashi.  It also sells its own proprietary brands, Nutraceutical Sciences Institute, Cosmeceutical Sciences Institute, Best of All, Smart Basics, and Walker Diet.

As of June 30, 2009, it lists roughly 957,000 active customers, and that is an increase of 37% since June 30, 2008 of customers who made a purchase within the past 12 months. Vitacost.com said that customers make purchases on average two to three times per year, and over the last twelve quarters its average order value has ranged between $72 and $77.

The company’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2008 had net sales of $143.6 million and net income of $17,407.00 as compared to net sales of $99.3 million and net income of $1.8 million for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2007.  For the six months ended June 30, 2009, it had net sales of $93.2 million and net income of $7.2 million, versus net sales of $68.7 million and net income of $715,000 for the six months ended June 30, 2008.

This one sounds somewhat similar to Vitamin Shoppe and its pending IPO.

JON C. OGG
August 24, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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