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By Mark Jewell
Shares of iRobot Corp. closed up more than 11 percent in Wednesday's trading debut for the world's largest maker of mobile robots for the consumer market, from the floor-cleaning Roomba to the soldier-accompanying Packbot.
The 15-year-old company, which began turning a profit last year, offered 4.3 million shares at $24 apiece. They rose as high as $34.16 in early trading before retreating to close up $2.70 at $26.70 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The offering, announced July 27, sought to raise $120 million to finance growth at a company that is the world's largest in the fields of mobile robotics and consumer robots, as opposed to industrial robots used on factory floors. Burlington-based iRobot is now one of the few robotics companies with publicly traded stock.
IRobot granted the stock offering's underwriters -- a syndicate led by Morgan Stanley & Co. and J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. -- the right to buy another 645,000 shares at the initial price. Company insiders who hold stakes are selling about 1 million shares in the initial offering.
The 4.3 million shares offered to the public Wednesday represent just 18 percent of the company's 23.3 million shares outstanding, most of them held by insiders. Based on the closing stock price, the company's market value is $621.8 million.
The IPO is seen as a test not only for iRobot but for an industry that has relied heavily on military contracts and venture capital.
"The technology wasn't ready prior to this," said Neena R. Buck, a technology analyst at Newton-based Strategy Analytics Inc.
IRobot's military robotics rivals include major defense contractors. Its larger and more diversified competitors in the consumer arena include AB Electrolux, Alfred Karcher and Samsung Electronics.
Buck said iRobot also faces competition from makers of conventional vacuums, which are teaming up with robotics researchers to develop rivals to iRobot's three-year-old Roomba, the source of more than half the company's revenue.
"Every vacuum cleaner company out there is coming out with a 'me, too' product," Buck said.
Meanwhile, iRobot is rolling out a mop called Scooba to clean and dry hard floors. On the military side, iRobot's track-wheeled PackBots have disarmed roadside bombs and searched caves and buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
IRobot was started by three colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990.
The 258-employee company has said in regulatory filings that it lost money from its inception through 2003, including losses of $10.8 million in 2002 and $7.4 million in 2003. The company posted a $219,060 profit last year, with net income of $2.6 million on revenue of $95.5 million through September of this year.
