IPO Watch: Visa

www.visa.com
NYSE: V
Scheduled for week of Mar. 17
$16 billion proceeds
$30.8 billion post-money valuation

Finally, there’s a hot IPO. Visa, the king of the credit cards, is going public in the king of all IPOs, the biggest ever in the United States. The company, which operates the world’s largest electronic payments network used for credit and debit transactions, is currently held by a consortium of banks, and they are not selling their Class B and Class C shares. However, they may as well be, as $10 billion of the proceeds (structured as Class A shares) will be used to redeem some of their stock upon the offering. Another $3 billion of the proceeds will be put in escrow for litigation, and the rest will go to general corporate purposes.

The litigation allowance is a bit scary. Visa has four main suits against it, all of which allege different forms of antitrust. The suits have been filed separately by Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), American Express Company (NYSE: AXP), a large group of merchants, and the fourth by a class of consumers. MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA), which went public in 2006, had a similar list of litigation in its prospectus, but it hasn’t held the stock back. It was offered at $39 on May 24, 2006, and currently trades at $191.50. Visa’s betting that investors will see the MasterCard profits and want a chance at the same, lawyers be damned.

Lawsuits aside, Visa is nicely profitable. Pro-forma for the effects of post-IPO share redemptions, the company lost $861 million on $5.2 billion of revenue, although expenses include a $2.7 billion charge for settling litigation with American Express. Revenue was up 33% in 2007 to over the $3.9 billion posted in 2006, thanks in part to a 13% increase in the number of payments processed and a 22% increase in the cash value of these payments.

---You can read the FULL article when you register (registration is free!) or sign-in to SmallCapInvestor.com---