VAR Sysorex IPO Debuts With Slight Slip In Price
Government-focused solution provider Sysorex Global Holdings on Thursday held its IPO, taking the company from an over-the-counter (OTC) listing to a NASDAQ-listed company with the ticker symbol SYRX.
The IPO is only the latest in the transformation of Sysorex from a small VAR to a channel powerhouse for government accounts -- a transformation that includes three acquisitions and a strategic investment in the past 12 months.
Sysorex on Wednesday priced its IPO at $6.00 per share, and unveiled plans to sell 3.3 million shares, hoping to net about $17.7 million from the offering.
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The Santa Clara, Calif.-based solution provider's share prices on the first day of trade fell 12 cents per share, or about 2 percent, to $5.88 per share, but went as low as $5.25 per share during the trading day. However, that was not out of line with Thursday's 3.1 percent plummet of the NASDAQ market as a whole.
Sysorex, whose primary business appears to be government-related, including acting as a prime contractor to the $250 million SPAWAR Business Force and Support (BFS) Portfolio, has come a long way in the past year.
Sysorex in April of 2013 acquired Lilien Systems, a solution provider whose $40 million annual revenue dwarfed Sysorex's $4 million to $5 million in annual sales.
At the time, the acquisition stemmed from a need to bring traditional solution-provider expertise to the more services-focused Sysorex.
Sysorex was launched more than 30 years ago and had built up a federal government business with an annual revenue of nearly $200 million before it was sold to Vanstar, which two years later was acquired by Inacom.
Sysorex was restarted in 2002, but remained fairly quiet until a reverse merger in 2011 with a company called Softlead turned Sysorex into a company listed on the OTC market. The company from that point focused on federal government business with an emphasis on services, but acquired Lilien to diversify its business into the commercial market, CEO Nadir Ali told CRN at the time.
Since the Lilien acquisition, Sysorex has gone on an acquisition spree.
Sysorex in September acquired Shoom, a Los Angeles-based provider of cloud-based data analytics and enterprise solutions to media, publishing and entertainment customers in exchange for 2.8 million Sysorex shares and $2.5 million in cash funded by working capital from Shoom’s operations.
The company in January followed up with the purchase of AirPatrol, a Maple Lawn, Md.-based provider of mobile location-based cybersecurity systems with technology the company said can offer location, security and context-awareness systems that can detect smartphones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices.
Sysorex in February unveiled a strategic relationship with Geneseo Communications under which the two plan to collaborate on the development and introduction of cloud services through Geneseo’s newest data center, ColoHub. As part of the relationship, Geneseo invested $2 million in Sysorex in exchange for 800,000 shares of restricted common stock.
Sysorex spokespeople and executives cited a quiet period resulting from the IPO in declining to comment on the company's business.
PUBLISHED APRIL 10, 2014