Vonage IPO Allocations
Kathy and I have been Vonage customers since sometime last year, so we qualify for direct shares in their pending IPO.
We were invited to place an offer for up to 5,000 shares, though we were informed we might receive less than we offer to buy, if there are too many customers who want to participate.
So we went ahead and placed an offer for 5,000 shares. (Actually, we’re doing it together with a friend who has been following Vonage like a hawk and wants to buy the vast majority of the shares from us immediately after the IPO takes place.)
Today the Vonage folks accepted our offer, and informed us of the share price as well as how many shares we would receive: 1,300 shares at $17 apiece.
This would seem to imply that they had something like four times more customers who wanted to participate, than they could accommodate.
It will be interesting to see what happens when it opens on the market. There’s been a ton of skepticism, but Vonage is winning some serious points with customers, if only because they’re the most high-profile alternative to the dreaded local telecom monopolies.
No, we’re not expecting to make a killing.
But we’ve been largely happy with their service — not that it’s perfect, but did I mention we hate our local phone company? — and we won’t mind it one bit if we make a few bucks through our direct shares.
Stay tuned… I’m sure I’ll be posting an update sometime after the IPO takes place tomorrow morning.
