Counting Angry Birds before they hatch: dev talks US IPO, analysts need track record
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Angry Birds developer Rovio has been on a roll: raking in millions of unit sales, breaking through to the mainstream and recently receiving another $42 million from investors. Now the company is talking about going public on the Nasdaq with an IPO in the next five years.
"At an estimated value of nearly $300 million, it would still be considered a relatively small company," EEDAR's Jesse Divnich explained when we asked about the company's chances. "Gameloft, for example has a current market cap of $344 million (the cost for someone to own every share of the company), this is compared to Activsion which has a market valuation of over $12 billion, and Google at $185 billion. In fact, most large mutual funds typically don't invest in anything with a market cap under $1 billion. If they do, they typically classify them as 'high-risk' or 'aggressive plays.'"
Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter had similar reservations about the company telling Joystiq, "Any company can go public, but the rule of thumb is that the company has at least $50 million of annual revenue before they try to sell stock. That revenue has to be recurring, and I think that is an obstacle for Rovio, which so far is a one-hit wonder. If they can replicate what they've done with Angry Birds, there might be some interest."
Pachter also mentioned that the administrative costs of being public is about $5 million annually, which is why small companies don't usually take the stock route.
"At an estimated value of nearly $300 million, it would still be considered a relatively small company," EEDAR's Jesse Divnich explained when we asked about the company's chances. "Gameloft, for example has a current market cap of $344 million (the cost for someone to own every share of the company), this is compared to Activsion which has a market valuation of over $12 billion, and Google at $185 billion. In fact, most large mutual funds typically don't invest in anything with a market cap under $1 billion. If they do, they typically classify them as 'high-risk' or 'aggressive plays.'"
Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter had similar reservations about the company telling Joystiq, "Any company can go public, but the rule of thumb is that the company has at least $50 million of annual revenue before they try to sell stock. That revenue has to be recurring, and I think that is an obstacle for Rovio, which so far is a one-hit wonder. If they can replicate what they've done with Angry Birds, there might be some interest."
Pachter also mentioned that the administrative costs of being public is about $5 million annually, which is why small companies don't usually take the stock route.
Reader Comments (24)
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:08AM krisr2005 said
Rovio is getting a little too cocky. They are attempting to ride the success of a single game, and they have yet to prove they can create something with the appeal of Angry Birds again.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:20AM the Peacemaker said
@krisr2005 I totally agree with you. The statements the company is making about retail games and now this...
Reply
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:14AM Kirkpad said
Subtle money signs on the eyes. Nice.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:19AM brightbonewhite said
I agree that angry birds is a one hit wonder for Rovio. It remains to be seen if they can regularly dish out quality games, rather than just new levels of stacked wood and stone to knock over with birds...
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:22AM F1shBone said
Ha!
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:23AM kbeehaze said
I haven't played this, but i''ve heard so much great things about it. I'll try it out afteri finish KZ3
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 1:07AM The Aquacharger said
@kbeehaze
Take the tank game from the Atari, or any flash game where you shoot stuff at a target over a distance to knock it down. That is Angry Birds.
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Take the tank game from the Atari, or any flash game where you shoot stuff at a target over a distance to knock it down. That is Angry Birds.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:27AM LaurenIsSoMosh said
A few hours ago, I deleted a screenshot that I took of Angry Birds' reviews, thinking I'd never use it. I now regret that.
It was a picture of five one-star reviews in a row, after Rovio's latest and highly unpopular new update which now spams paying customers with Rovio "news" (read as: advertisements). There were actually seven one-star reviews in a row, but I could only fit five on the screen.
So, yeah. Now is probably the worst time for them to be getting big heads.
It was a picture of five one-star reviews in a row, after Rovio's latest and highly unpopular new update which now spams paying customers with Rovio "news" (read as: advertisements). There were actually seven one-star reviews in a row, but I could only fit five on the screen.
So, yeah. Now is probably the worst time for them to be getting big heads.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 6:01AM glassfin said
@LaurenIsSoMosh
joikuspot does the same thing, spams paying customers with spam about new versions. so every time i put it on, i get a reminder that i should get a new symbian^3 version of it, the stupid ad-note doesn't even tell me which new features there are and doesn't have a "don't ever show me this again" button.
i think it's because these companies might be using the same consultants and rulebook for luring in more activity from existing users so that they can use that as a metric when talking to investors. it's friggin annoying. and they're all without imagination and if a competitor has done something that works nicely as justification for doing it themselfs(regardless of if the competitor was succesful or not).
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joikuspot does the same thing, spams paying customers with spam about new versions. so every time i put it on, i get a reminder that i should get a new symbian^3 version of it, the stupid ad-note doesn't even tell me which new features there are and doesn't have a "don't ever show me this again" button.
i think it's because these companies might be using the same consultants and rulebook for luring in more activity from existing users so that they can use that as a metric when talking to investors. it's friggin annoying. and they're all without imagination and if a competitor has done something that works nicely as justification for doing it themselfs(regardless of if the competitor was succesful or not).
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 12:37AM The Only Girl said
Wow...he's gonna fall HARD.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 1:42AM MatthewMk2 said
Pachter saying something that's not completely insane? This is new.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 1:46AM The Aquacharger said
@MatthewMk2
It's still pretty obvious though.
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It's still pretty obvious though.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 1:47PM original fred said
@The Aquacharger
Pachter either says the completely obvious or the completely idotic. Seems to be his shtick.
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Pachter either says the completely obvious or the completely idotic. Seems to be his shtick.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 2:12AM ouenwoof said
I can understand why people like Angry Birds, but it's never done much for me. Almost all levels require a ridiculous level of blind-luck to do very well on, even when you get the basic strategy of each type of bird down.
If anything though, just because you're popular enough to get a film tie-in game (Angry Birds Rio), doesn't mean you're big enough to list yourself among several extremely high-profile game PUBLISHERS. Until they prove themselves with a track-record of successful releases, this is way too far in advance to be trying to do something like this.
If anything though, just because you're popular enough to get a film tie-in game (Angry Birds Rio), doesn't mean you're big enough to list yourself among several extremely high-profile game PUBLISHERS. Until they prove themselves with a track-record of successful releases, this is way too far in advance to be trying to do something like this.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 3:39AM soulseekerUK said
Greed i hope it chokes him...or why not do something to help others, why not donate some of that cash to help the suffering going on in the world right now..and save us all the pain of angry birds new skin.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 4:38AM TheE3Guy said
How about they just take their $300mil and go their merry way?
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 5:55AM glassfin said
@TheE3Guy
do the riot thing? that's how this looks.
they got one arcade game concept and that's it. the running revenues don't justify the 40mil injection even, that was valued based on future earnings from the so called franchise. and what's worse, they seem to be stacking eggs into the angry bird basket. an IPO would be just a trap for goldrushing small investors, it's so expensive to do it that it makes no sense for the company of their size or for a company in their position and products, so the question would be what would they dump the IPO money into if they got it? and why? considering that they didn't need the money for creating angry birds in the first place and they have now enough money to produce a top pc-game(40 mil keeps a team of 20 or so going for a while, or maybe they're going to waste the money on balkan localisations and such, maybe an office in beijing..).
Reply
do the riot thing? that's how this looks.
they got one arcade game concept and that's it. the running revenues don't justify the 40mil injection even, that was valued based on future earnings from the so called franchise. and what's worse, they seem to be stacking eggs into the angry bird basket. an IPO would be just a trap for goldrushing small investors, it's so expensive to do it that it makes no sense for the company of their size or for a company in their position and products, so the question would be what would they dump the IPO money into if they got it? and why? considering that they didn't need the money for creating angry birds in the first place and they have now enough money to produce a top pc-game(40 mil keeps a team of 20 or so going for a while, or maybe they're going to waste the money on balkan localisations and such, maybe an office in beijing..).
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 9:46AM Wintrale said
I'm glad people are finally realising how much of a fad Angry Birds is. It's not even a decent game and most of their "sales" are from people sitting on the loo bored. If they actually think even a tenth of their userbase is actually interested in Angry Birds, they're sorely overoptimistic - I still haven't beaten the first world and have no intention of ever playing it again. Too busy with real games, like P3P and Radiant Historia.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 10:39AM Nexum said
Wow. Everybody recognizes that Rovio has made a very popular flash game for phones, but someone is getting a little too big for their britches.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 1:16PM Scotty96 said
...Um...how is something worth that much that a majority of people have never or will never PAY for? On Android it's free with ads and quite frankly if they suddenly went to being a paid version, I wouldn't pay for it.
Same thing with Zynga, I played Farmville for a week, Mafia Wars for awhile, but I NEVER paid any real life money for anything?
It's like the South Park episode where they talk about "internet money"
Same thing with Zynga, I played Farmville for a week, Mafia Wars for awhile, but I NEVER paid any real life money for anything?
It's like the South Park episode where they talk about "internet money"
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 3:38PM ND92 said
Rovio, I challenge you to repeat the success of Angry birds with something fresh.
Posted: Mar 22nd 2011 4:34PM (Unverified) said
Simple idea to reclaim their top spot. Pig Defense. Now you design the wooden, ice and steel towers to try to keep back the sharpshooting AI birds.
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