According to this unconfirmed item from a French Linux site,
Mandrakesoft is planning on offering shares on the 'Marché
Libre' of EuroNext, a European exchange, before the end of July.
Most of the shares will be offered to large institutional
investors, with a small share offered to European Linux
"contributors"; because of European regulations, U.S. Linux
contributors won't be offered any shares.
"We chose the 'Marché Libre' of EuroNext
(http://www.euronext.com) - the Pan-European market (Paris,
Brussels, Amsterdam). It's a non-regulated market and not as
prestigious as the 'Nouveau Marché' or the Nasdaq for
investors. Our interest in the 'Marché Libre' is that we can
proceed quickly and benefit from the low cost associated with this
market...."
"We expect to raise a small amount: 6 to 8 millions Euros. The
valuation is not yet fixed but should be extremely attractive --
probably less than a 20th of Red Hat's valuation. If you believe
that MandrakeSoft is worth more than 5% of Red Hat, you are ready
to recommend our IPO :-)...."
"Unfortunately, this option can only be offered to contributors
located in the European Union due to regulatory issues. We are not
allowed to solicit foreign individual investors without filing
multiple papers. In particular, the SEC (US market regulators)
assumes that US citizens do not have sufficient knowledge to invest
in IPOs of European markets and therefore imposes complicated rules
for them, so numerous US contributors won't be offered to invest in
this 10% part. We will probably do something just after the IPO for
people who live outside the European Union."
