An IPO in the middle of a crisis is usually not recommended. Without exception. In this case, Pexip, a Norwegian group specializing in videoconferencing, has perhaps chosen the best possible time to successfully go public. Videoconferencing is popular with telework companies around the world. The industry leader, Zoom, has experienced some setbacks after failing to provide security in its service.
The title of the Norwegian climbed 54% for its IPO Tuesday and its valuation reaches 9.6 billion Norwegian kroner (868 million euros). It was aimed at around 600 million euros. It is still far from the American Zoom, which exceeds $ 47 billion. Question profitability, the Norwegian also seems to do worse than the new giant across the Atlantic.
However, Norwegian society is growing very fast. "While Pexip remains much smaller than Zoom, its growth rate is approaching that of the American," said Arun George of Global Equity Research in a note published on the Smartkarma site. According to him, Pexip should record growth of 50% in the first quarter of 2020. It should interest investors looking for videoconferencing companies a little cheaper than Zoom.
Above all, Pexip is not targeting a market as large as Zoom, the latter being used both by large groups and by schools. The Norwegian strives to attract large companies. Among his clients, he accounts for 15% of the Global Fortune 500, including General Electric, Accenture, Vodafone, Intel and, on the administration side, the US Veterans Affairs.
Zoom sued in court
Pexip insists on the protection of the data of its users. It therefore offers its customers the possibility of hosting video conferences themselves on their own servers. A good point for him, while Zoom has been strongly criticized lately for his failures in terms of security - a problem he is currently trying to solve. These setbacks may cost him dearly. Thursday, after other disgruntled customers, an American church in California filed a complaint against Zoom. One of his distance catechism courses was hacked and parasitized by pornographic images.