Visio Corp. Plans Stock Offering
Visio Corp., a drawing and diagramming software maker which early on tied its fortunes to the success of Microsoft's Windows platform, plans to go public.
The Seattle company yesterday filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer up to 1,650,000 shares of common stock in an initial public offering.
The stock, 1.4 million shares of which are being offered by the company, is expected to be priced between $17 and $20 per share on the Nasdaq exchange, company officials said.
The lead underwriter is Alex, Brown & Sons and the offering will be co-managed by Bear Stearns & Co.
Since it began in 1992, Visio has worked closely with Microsoft to develop its products, including its flagship "Visio" software program which simplifies the process of drawing objects such as circles, boxes and triangles for flowcharts and timelines. That program was upgraded last month to take advantage of the Windows 95 release, which officials hope will boost the company's fortunes by expanding its small but growing base of 450,000 users.
Visio, now the leading drawing and diagramming software manufacturer with more than 50 percent of the market, has 150 employees worldwide. Last year, it had $23 million in revenue.
Visio has written programs strictly for the Windows operating system, even when the Macintosh was far and away the leading graphics computer.
As a result of its tight relationship with Microsoft, some industry observers have questioned whether the Redmond software manufacturer might some day encroach on Visio's market.