IPO Pricing Alert: AeroVironment

AeroVironment Inc.(AVAV-NASDAQ) haspriced its IPO.  This was one that we thought was supposed to pricelater in the week, but the demand was there for a premium pricing orthe late-week indication was not accurate.  We had been given aWednesday to Thursday IPO trade date indication last week; but the Cramer push on CNBC’s Mad Money from last friday might have bumped the terms a bit more.

AeroVironment is a maker of small unmanned backpack-sizedrecon-aircraft used by the military, although it does derive somecorporate revenues; more can be found on the company homepage.The deal priced 6.7 million shares at $17.00 per share, above the$14.00 to $16.00 range.  The underwriters have the option to purchasean additional 1 million shares to cover overallotments and it will haveslightly north of a $350 million market cap for the offering price.

As noted, Goldman Sachs is the lead underwriter; co-managers arelisted as Friedman Billings Ramsay, Jefferies, Raymond James, ThomasWeisel, and Stifel Nicolaus.  The company had revenues of $139 millionand profit of approximately $11 million in 2006. This was expected toget a slight bump at pricing, but Cramer got on this one last Fridayand now many more inquiries have been made and the opening price couldeasily be above $19.00 or $20.00.  We’ll have to see how the market ison Tuesday before hanging any finite opening price out there.

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Jon C. Ogg
January 22, 2007