Under $10 Special Ones

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IPO Watch: Make your portfolio smile

Ann C. Logue | Oct 23, 2007 6:20am EDT | User Rating N/A

012 Smile.Communications LTD
www.012.net
NASDAQ: SMLC
Scheduled for Oct. 29
$375.7 million post-money valuation

Is it 1999 all over again? No matter how mature the Internet seems, investors want stock in it. Hence, Internet Gold - Golden Lines Ltd. (Nasdaq: IGLD), an Israeli telecommunications and Internet company, is spinning off its 012 Smile.Communications subsidiary, which operates a broadband Internet service, VoIP-based telephone and business services, and a network of Wi-Fi Internet access spots throughout Israel. After the deal closes, Internet Gold will own 73.3% of the 012 Smile.Communications business and all of its Smile.Media business, which provides online content, advertising, commerce and search services.

Internet Gold hopes to net about $91.3 million from the offering of 6,675,000 shares at a price between $14 and $16 per share. (All numbers are in U.S. dollars on U.S. GAAP.) Of the proceeds from the offering, $41.0 million will go to pay off debt, debentures, and a contingent payment stemming from its December 2006 acquisition of 012 Golden Lines, an Internet service provider (ISP) that was rolled into Smile.Communications. The rest of the funds will go to general corporate purposes, possibly including acquisitions. Acquisitions aside, the big source of growth will be telephone services. Israel is a tiny country. Its citizens come from all over the world, and its businesses (including Internet Gold) rely on customers and partners all over the place. Hence, it’s easy for people to run up big long-distance bills, and that makes alternatives attractive. Already, the company captures 34% of incoming and outgoing international call minutes within Israel.

Although 012 Smile.Communications is the second largest ISP in Israel with about a third of the market, it generated just $244.4 million in revenue from one million residential and business customers in 2006 on a pro-forma basis. To put that in perspective, Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA), which is the second largest ISP in the United States with about 12% of the market, brought in over $24.9 billion in total revenue last year, although the company did not break down how much of those sales came from its 11 million Internet subscribers and how much came from customers using television and telephone services.