November 1, 2006
The Marker
Omri Cohen

RR Satellite Global Communications Network last night wrapped up its initial public offering on Nasdaq, achieving a post-money company valuation of $208.5 million.

The company is listing under the ticker symbol RRST. RR Satellite sold 3.625 million shares for $12.50 apiece, raising a gross sum of $45.3 million. The company scored close to the upper boundary of its pricing range, which had been $11-13.

Founder David Rivel, who has run the company for the last 15 years, sold 175,000 shares for $2.2 million. He will remain with a 14.8% shareholding in RR Satellite, assuming the underwriters exercise their green-shoe option. Lior Rivel, his son, is the marketing veep, as well as chairman of subsidiary Gilad Ramot. The underwriters have an option to buy up to 570,000 more shares from RR Satellite, at the IPO price, to meet any excess demand.

RR Satellite provides satellite services to TV stations that prefer to achieve global status without setting up stations in individual countries. For the first half of 2006 it achieved 38% revenue growth to $19.7 million, while net profit more than doubled to $3.6 million.

CIBC led the offering together with Thomas Weisel, which is represented in Israel by Magnolia Capital. William Blair, CE Unterberg Towbin and Maxim Group assisted.

Rapac, a TASE-listed company and the parent of RR Satellite, will be posting a $11-15.5 million capital gain on the IPO.