Supermicro's IPO not so super

Server seller Supermicro has endured a most modest IPO.

The vendor offered up 8 million shares of common stock at $8 per share. By the end of the day's trading, Supermicro's stock (SMCI) rose 9.5 per cent to close at $8.76. That's a healthy enough IPO for a hardware vendor but hardly the stuff of which dreams are made.

Underwriters including Merrill Lynch, UBS and Needham had been looking for shares to sell between $9.50 and $11.50.

During fiscal 2006, Supermicro shipped systems to more than 400 customers around the globe. It brought in $302.5m from those sales – a substantial increase over 2005's sales of $211.8m. Supermicro also posted a profit of $17m in 2006.

The company has garnered a solid reputation for its Intel- and AMD-based server and motherboard designs.

The last major server vendor IPO of note occurred in 2005 with Rackable Systems. Shares of Rackable have done quite the yo-yo impression over the past two years. ®