posted
Cramer is an idiot. I worked for the owner of Vonage, Jeff Citron. Any business he's been in has had tremendous value attached to it (see Datek Online).
I wouldn't buy on the day of the IPO, but definitely a long term hold.
-------------------- Stick with Repo's plan in '07 - FRPT/DKAM! Posts: 6379 | From: PA | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Yeah Cramer said it would be a good buy for the first year. Who knows there will definitely be alot of upcoming competition with baby-bells and cable companies getting into the game.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
It may be one to watch. Vonage has started wholesaling services to the cable cos, etc. Instead of competing against them they positioned themselves to provide services to them. I think it was a smart move.
The IPO might be like the pre2001 IPOs with huge short term gains. But I agree it may be a better long term play fter the IPO hype settles down.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
voip is gonna do away with telephone lines, or the next evolution of voip. If vonage sets themselves up properly this could cornerstone of any portfolio
Posts: 30 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Vonage sells $531 million in IPO shares 5/23/2006 5:27:42 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Internet phone service provider Vonage Holdings Corp. on Tuesday priced an initial public offering worth about $531 million, according to an underwriter. The 31.25 million share offering priced at $17 per share, at the midpoint of $16 to $18 forecast, in a test of investors' willingness to accept risk amid growing market volatility.
Vonage has acknowledged it may never be profitable and is viewed with skepticism by many analysts, who cite the growing competition it faces in providing voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) services. "We haven't liked the offering since we first saw the registration," said David Menlow, president of IPOFinancial.com. "There are so many other companies out there that can deploy this strategy or this product in a heartbeat." VoIP offers an alternative to traditional home phones by allowing subscribers to make calls using a phone connected to a high-speed Internet line. The Holmdel, New Jersey-based company said it plans to use the proceeds to fund expansion and marketing, and to pay back debt.
Since its inception in 2001, Vonage has incurred losses in every quarter, a deficit that reached a total of $455 million on March 31, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company aims to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange using the symbol "VG" (VG.N).
Not only does Vonage face pressure from similar services by eBay Inc.'s (EBAY.O) Skype and Google Inc. (GOOG.O), it also competes with telephone and cable television giants offering all-in-one packages of voice, Internet and entertainment. "I don't believe they have anything that is so unique, and I don't know that their customer base is strong enough to stay with them through good times or bad times," Menlow said. Analysts have said that while Vonage would likely add customers for the next few years due to a rise in high-speed Internet subscriptions, it may have a harder time ahead as cable and telecom companies' bundled services take hold. The company has grown rapidly in the last two years, more than tripling its subscribers since 2004, but the company concedes in the filing that it doesn't expect to sustain that level of growth.
Some skeptics say Vonage likely chose to go public because it was desperate for capital and no company came up with an adequate takeover offer. It is also unclear if the IPO will be impacted by Vonage's decision to reserve a portion of the offering for its customers. "It's not viewed necessarily as a positive," Menlow said of the customer placement plan. "It's more about public relations." Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are the lead underwriters on the deal.
(Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando )
Posts: 135 | From: DC | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
should be on the penny stock board soon. i got an email, phone call and snail mail from vonage saying they were allowing me to get in on such a great deal at the IPO open price. what bs. it took me 20 mins of research to figure out this stock was junk.
their debt and spending was/is out of control. i am sure they already spent every bit of the 500 million they made on the IPO.
i thought it was pretty f*ed up of a company to rope their customers into guaranteed shares at a price they knew wouldnt hold up even on the first day of trading. in my mind they ripped their customers off. premeditated crime.
i was just reading an article about how lots of vn customers bought the max of 5k shares at pre-IPO prices and are pissed cuz its now at 30% below its opening (just saw it at $12 - opened at $17).
duh ppl, do some research.
on the other hand, vonage is a great service. i got my vonage box in 2003 and love it. i have a toll free # that costs me $5 a month, some local numbers for my clients to use in various cities, and i can ring my cell or one of my ppl simultaneously when a call comes in. unlimited long distance, calls to europe for pennies - all for $40 a month. moving - which i've done many times in 3 years - is as simple as unplugging the box and plugging it back in to any router. i even took it to mexico when i went for two months last winter.
that said, this company is headed for bankruptcy cuz they spend like a 12 year old who found a $20 bill in the street. its not 1999 anymore and never will be again. spend money like its yours. a 70% of rev ad budget is stupid.
-------------------- confucius say 'trade without emotion' Posts: 39 | From: NY | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Glad I didn't get in this one. Ouch, more bad news today.
Vonage flagged flaws in directed-share program By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch Last Update: 8:10 AM ET Jun 2, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Vonage may have left a loophole for customers reluctant to pay for their currently overpriced IPO shares in errors made when it began communicating details of its directed-stock program before its ill-fated stock market debut. Language in the IPO's prospectus about mistakes in communications on the stock-buying program could provide fuel to any stock-buying dissenters. The company's first in a series of e-mails didn't include an active link to the company's prospectus in its frequently asked questions section, Vonage said. "It is possible that the e-mail communication and the first page of the Web site could be determined to be an illegal offer...in which case recipients could seek to recover damages or seek to require us to repurchase their shares at the IPO price," Vonage said in its IPO. Vonage (VG : vonage hldgs corp com News , chart, profile, more Last: 0.000.000.00%
4:15am 06/02/2006
Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolio Analyst Create alertInsider Discuss Financials Sponsored by: VG0.00, 0.00, 0.0%) shares head into trading Friday at a new low of $11.63 since the company's initial public offering debuted May 24 at $17 a share. In a statement issued this week, Vonage said that customers who enrolled in the directed share program will still be required to pay for shares they ordered at the IPO price. See full story. In its IPO, Vonage also flagged a problem with a voice mail message sent to customers that didn't include the name and address of a person to contact about getting a prospectus. The company goes on to conclude that it believes it would have "meritorious defenses to any legal actions based on claims of alleged defects" in its communications. The directed-share program by Vonage marked an unusual move by a company and was seen as a way for the company to generate additional buzz around its IPO. See full story. Wading into the fray, Soleil Securities said any arguments by customers trying to get out of their stock orders are moot. "It was all delineated in the prospectus as was everything that pointed to $17 as significantly overvalued," Soleil said. "The 'sour grapes' in the press is a non-issue, in our opinion. We don't believe that the IPO will be canceled, nor will non-sub retail investors be made whole." Steve Gelsi is a reporter for MarketWatch in New York.
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10761 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Has anyone actually used this service. A friend of mine has it and I think it is garbage 4 out of 8 calls I make to him the service interrupts for seconds at a time.
Posts: 76 | From: CHARLOTTE, NC | Registered: Jan 2006
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A buddy of mine uses them in Pennsyltucky and he says it works great. He's had no problems. I'm actually going to switch over to them as soon as they come to my area. Who knows when that will be though?
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10761 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Geezz, The talking heads on CNBC could barely contain they're laughter while profiling this fiasco of an IPO...
Sure hope old repoman doesn't have to repo his former boss's car!
These guys must of read a book on how to do it wrong...Un-exceptable in a big board stock to have people as stupid as these folks runing a company..
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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I tried Vonage twice. the first time we couldn't get it to boot on the modem. I spent several hours with their customer service, most of it on hold. Finally thier response was that I didn't know what I was doing! I spoke with a sales rep at my cell phone retailer who also was a vonage distributor, he said that he has had a lot of people saying the same thing but vonage was coming out with some new more compatible software. I reluctantly tried them again a few months later. I was able to get service up and running. It was cheap and worked great, for about two months. My modem went out. It took 23 days to get it replaced. I sent it back and switched to my local cable provider at a higher price but MUCH better service. I will never use Vonage again.
Posts: 157 | From: florida | Registered: May 2006
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Verizon accuses Internet phone carrier Vonage of VoIP patent infringement 6/19/2006 1:00:28 PM
By JEFFREY GOLD AP Business Writer
Verizon Communications Inc. has charged that Internet phone carrier Vonage Holdings Corp. violated patent rights that Verizon has on technology for making phone calls over the Internet.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Virginia, on behalf of subsidiaries Verizon Services Corp., of Arlington, Virginia, and Verizon Laboratories Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts.
Vonage, which said Monday it had been sued, contested the claim. ''Vonage believes that its services have been developed with its own proprietary technology and technology licensed from third parties and intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit,'' the company said in a statement.
Vonage spokesman Mitchell Slepian declined to comment further.
Vonage stock dropped more than 9 percent in trading Monday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, the latest blow to shares that have lost about half their value since the company went public in late May.
Verizon charged that Vonage is infringing on at least seven of its patents regarding Internet phone service, a technology known as voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP. The patents include inventions related to gateway interfaces between a packet-switched and circuit-switched network, billing and fraud detection, call services such as call forwarding and voicemail and methods related to Wi-Fi handset use in a VoIP network, the lawsuit said.
The complaint, filed June 12, also claimed that Vonage is aggressively marketing and advertising services made with Verizon's appropriated intellectual property.''
Vonage has added 1.1 million new customers in 15 months, ''many of whom are Verizon's former customers,'' the lawsuit said.
Vonage's plan to use funds from its initial public offering to expand its marketing and advertising on services that infringe on Verizon patents threatens ''to shift more customer and goodwill to its business at Verizon's expense,'' the complaint stated.
The action by Verizon, the largest U.S. telecommunications company by revenue, follows a shareholder class-action lawsuit that claims Vonage improperly steered consumers toward investing in its $531 million (euro422 million) initial public offering.
Shares of Vonage tumbled 91 cents, or 9.5 percent, to $8.69 and a 52-week low in afternoon trading on the NYSE. The stock has been trading in a 52-week range between $9.60 and $17.25. Verizon shares gained 9 cents to $32.63 in afternoon trading on the NYSE.
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