Angie’s List & Insiders Unloading Shares, With Kid Gloves (ANGI, YELP)

The proceeds of the primary portion of the offering will fund the company’s advertising strategy, to drive membership growth, and for general corporate purposes. The company also noted that the offering will facilitate an orderly distribution of shares by the selling stockholders and it also aims to increase the company’s public float.

What investors have to consider here is that the initial public offering was for about 8.8 million shares at $13.00 per share, and that was at the top of the proposed $11.00 to $13.00 price range.  Shares closed at $13.54 on Tuesday and the post-IPO range is $10.77 to $19.82.  With a market cap of $771 million, $10 million is not really a huge dilution.  It is not even that much of a watering down against the public float on the surface.

Our take at the IPO was that Angie’s List is a company which many investors might take a pass on because it is easy to argue that the company does not really need to be public.  It also seems like a shoe-in that Yelp, Inc. (NYSE: YELP) are going to end up being so similar in the ‘peer reviews’ business after the core markets peak and they start to look for new markets for peer reviews.

The sale here is one which we would have initially said was one which punishes existing holders.  After taking a second look, this at least looks like it is far less of a watering-down than many other newly public internet outfits pour on their shareholders.

JON C. OGG