ARLINGTON,VA.: Rosetta Stone, one of the companies credited with a 9 percent increase in the direct-response TV ad category for 2008, is going public. Rosetta is offering 6.25 million common shares at between $15 and $17 each, for market cap of $345 million tops. The company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol RST.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Rosetta cleared nearly $14 million on revenues of $209 million last year. It will be the second company to price an IPO during April, after only one did so for the first three months of the year. Morgan Stanley, William Blair & Co., Jefferies & Co., Piper Jaffray & Co. and Robert W. Baird & Co. are underwriters.
Rosetta was singled out in Nielsen’s recent 2008 ad spending report that showed year-to-year decreases across all broadcast TV platforms. Broadcast network TV was down 3.5 percent; spot revenue for stations in the top 100 markets fell 0.3 percent; and for those in markets 101-210, advertisers spent 4.6 percent less than in 2007.
Direct-response ranked eighth among the 10 biggest spenders in product categories last year, and only one of two that spent more than in 2007. Direct response products accounted for nearly $2.6 billion in ad spending in 2008, up 9 percent from 2007, according to Nielsen. Rosetta Stone alone increased spending by 73 percent last year. -- Deborah D. McAdams
