Clearwire Times Set for Early Morning IPO

Clearwire’s (CLWR-NASDAQ): NASDAQ has released the times and the initial public offering of Clearwire will be released on NASDAQ today for quotation at 10:25 ET and trading at approximately 10:40. 

After talking with various traders ahead of the IPO this one was perceived to open around a $28.00 level, but now the market has popped again.  This open price talk would have been higher last week, but the higher share count and the market slide we saw last week are likely keeping this one fromn getting too out of control.  Keep in mind on the pricing that these often change and are probably a bit more financial voodoo than they are an exact pricing science. 

The company bumped up its 20 million share offering to 24 million shares and the $25.00 pricing was at the top of the $23.00 to $25.00 range.  We had noted that it was likely to either see a higher price, or a bump up in the shares, or both.  So the pricing was at the top of the range, but the shares were raised by 20%.  The underwriting was led by Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc. as bookrunners. Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC, Bear Stearns & Co. Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Jeffries & Company, Inc., Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Think Equity Partners LLC and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Incorporated are acting as co-managers.  Underwriters have a 3.6 million share overallotment instead of the 3 million shares originally indicated, and it is a safe bet to assume that the company will be ‘overallotting’ those.

Keep in mind that the company has already disclosed that it will need to raised additional capital in the markets in the near future to continue its build-outs. Here was Cramer’s original IPO playbook on it.

Jon C. Ogg
March 8, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.