Aug 22, 2001 Tessera, Inc. on Tuesday became the latest technology company to withdraw an initial public stock offering (IPO) because of the weak market.
The San Jose-based designer of chip scale packaging for the semiconductor industry requested the Securities and Exchange Commision to withdraw its registration statement immediately "because of unfavorable market conditions." It didn't elaborate.
There was no circulation of preliminary prospectuses in connection with the proposed offering, the registration statement was not declared effective by the Commission, and none of the company's securities were sold pursuant to theregistration statement, according to the filing made on Tuesday.
In the original filing last September, Tessera disclosed a string of losses in recent years. For the nine months ended September 30, 2000, the company had revenues of $8.3 million and a net loss of $21.5 million.
The IPO market has virtually collapsed this year as the stock market has continued on a downward slide and sales of technology products have sagged. Tech companies such as Candescent Technologies this year have pulled their IPOs in the face of the sour market.
IPOs today have little chance of succeeding unless a company is already profitable, or at least has a plausible chance for profitability soon, according to financial analysts.
In the filing last September, Tessera said it had licensed its technology to over 35 companies, including semiconductor manufacturers, assemblers and material and equipment suppliers. As of the filing, the company had received royalties on more than 350 million semiconductors packaged using its technology.
Customers listed include ChipPAC, EEMS, Intel, IPAC, LG Electronics, OSE, Samsung and Toshiba, each accounting for more than $250,000 of company revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2000.
"Our technology is incorporated in electronic products, including wireless handsets, or mobile phones, personal digital assistants, personal computers, servers and game consoles, from Casio, Compaq, Dell, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony," the filing added.
