Company News: Visa to seek $10 billion with IPO
“Visa Inc. hopes to cash in on its massive credit and debit card network by raising up to $10 billion in what would be the second largest initial public offering of stock in U.S. history.
The San Francisco-based company disclosed its target amount late Friday in documents it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a significant step in a hotly anticipated IPO expected to take place early next year.
Visa didn’t specify how much stock would be sold or at what price per share. A proposed ticker symbol wasn’t listed either. All that information will emerge in future filings leading up to the IPO.
If Visa realizes its $10 billion goal, it would be raising the second most ever generated in an IPO by a U.S. company, according to data maintained by the research firm Renaissance Capital. AT&T Wireless Group raised $10.6 billion in an IPO completed in April 2000 near the height of the dot-com boom.
“Office Depot Inc. said it will revise some past financial statements after an independent review of vendor-program accounting found weakness in its internal controls and led to the firing of four merchandising employees.
The review revealed that during the period beginning in the third quarter of 2006 through the second quarter of 2007, funds due or received from vendors were recognized in the current quarter but should have been deferred into later periods.
The company identified weaknesses in its internal controls and has since fired four employees, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Office Depot has not set a new date for its third-quarter report, which the company announced Oct. 29 it would delay due to the vendor program review.
“The New York Daily News has joined Yahoo Inc.‘s year-old effort to generate more revenue by helping newspapers sell more online advertising.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo is now working with 377 newspapers owned by 21 different companies, including the addition announced Friday.
The Daily News, the fifth largest U.S. newspaper with a daily circulation of 681,415, is the biggest paper to join Yahoo’s alliance so far.
Newspapers turned to Yahoo in hopes of regaining some of the advertising revenue that has shifted to the Internet in recent years. Yahoo, meanwhile, is trying to snap out of a prolonged funk that has depressed its stock price.