Vizio, Inc. filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its initial public offering (IPO). There were no terms given in the filing but the offering is valued at up to $172.5 million. The company has not chosen a market to list on yet but it plans to list under the symbol VZIO.
The underwriters for this offering are Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, BMO, Piper Jaffray, Wells Fargo, and Roth Capital Partners.
The company was founded in 2002 and has sold over 65 million televisions, audio and other products and built a solid brand. Vizio has achieved a significant U.S. market share in both smart TVs, or Internet-connected televisions, and sound bars.
The company has over 8 million Vizio connected units (VCU), that is, a Smart TV that has been connected to the Internet and has transmitted data collected by its Inscape data services. The Inscape data services capture real-time viewing behavior data from the VCUs and enable Vizio to provide it to advertisers and media content providers.
In the filing Vizio said:
Our products are sold in over 8,000 retail stores across the United States. We held the #1 unit share position in the U.S. sound bar industry and the #2 unit share position in the U.S. smart high definition, or HDTV, industry in 2014. For the years ended December 31, 2013 and 2014 and the six months ended June 30, 2015, we generated net sales of $3.0 billion, $3.1 billion and $1.3 billion and reported net income of $25.7 million, $45.0 million and $31.4 million, respectively. Substantially all of these amounts were generated from the sale of televisions and sound bars.
In terms of the proceeds from the offering, Vizio intends to use the net proceeds of this offering to expand its business and operations, including internationally, support strategic global marketing and branding campaigns, broaden the portfolio of products and services within in its platform, as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes. The company may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, products or technologies or to enter into strategic relationships with third parties.
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