ViewSonic, In Growth Mode, Files For IPO

The Walnut, Calif.-based company said in an S-1 filing that it saw $1.6 billion in sales and income of $23.6 million for 2006, compared with $1.2 billion in sales and $9.8 million in income for 2005. For the first three months of 2007, ViewSonic said it has seen sales of $410 million, compared with $327 million for the year-ago quarter, and income of $29 million, compared with $26 million for the same quarter a year earlier.

"We tend to experience higher net sales in the second half of the year due to a strong buying season by large distributors and resellers attributable to the holiday season in the Americas, which trend we expect to increase to the extent we are successful in increasing sales of our LCD TV products," the company said in its S-1. "Our seasonality is moderated through slightly different seasonal variations in our three regions."

ViewSonic reported that it paid CEO James Chu $300,000 in salary in 2005 and $330,000 in 2006, and Matt Milne, vice president of ViewSonic Americas, saw his salary increase from $321,678 to $331,329 from 2005 to 2006.

Handling the IPO will be JP Morgan, Banc of America Securities, Thomas Weisel Partners and Needham & Co., ViewSonic reported. After the offering, Chu and affiliates will own 87.2 percent of the company's shares, ViewSonic said.

In its registration statement, the company said all market signs point to steady and strong growth in the coming years, fueled by changes in technology and the marketplace. At current rates, ViewSonic would outpace the market.

"On the demand side, the explosion of digital media and the proliferation of [high-definition] broadcasting, sophisticated applications and rich multimedia content are creating strong pull for high-performance visual display products with a versatile, flat and thin form factor," ViewSonic said. "Concurrently, the supply side has been stimulated by the combination of lower component prices and the broad availability of leading technologies, pushing high-quality product into the market to fulfill this demand. We estimate our addressable display product market in 2006 was $98.6 billion, and we forecast that it will grow to $135.5 billion in 2009, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11.2 percent."

At the offering, ViewSonic would be listed on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol VIEW.