Jive Software Shares Surge In Market Debut

Jive Software Inc's shares soared in their market debut as investors look to cash in on the immense popularity of social media offerings on the backdrop of upcoming IPOs like those of Facebook and Zynga.

Jive's shares closed at $15.05 on Nasdaq, a 25 per cent gain on the $12 price set by the social networking software provider a day ago. The stock had touched a high of $16.50 earlier in the session. At Tuesday's close, the company has a market value of about $862 million.

Nearly 15 million Jive shares changed hands in their first day of trade.

Jive, which makes software to integrate online communities, microblogging, social networking, discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and instant messaging under one interface, had filed in August to raise up to $100 million in its IPO.

On Monday, Jive's offering was oversubscribed helping the company sell more shares, at a higher-than-expected price, raising $160.8 million from its listing.

"I came as CEO of Jive in 2010 and then it was clear there was a massive market opportunity to bring social to the enterprise. So, at that time, we began investing in our business, with an eye towards someday being here (as a public company)," Chief Executive Tony Zingale told Reuters.

The Palo-Alto, California-based company reported sales of $46.3 million in 2010, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2011, it posted total revenue of $54.8 million.

And the company is poised to grow further.

"We will continue to invest in our social business software platform and take that platform to different markets. So the plan in the next six months is to invest and execute," CEO Zingale said.

Jive already has close to 700 clients -- a list that includes Hewlett-Packard, SAP, T-Mobile and UBS.

The company is backed by private equity firm Sequoia Capital and its affiliates who own an about 35 per cent stake.

The underwriters to the offering were led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

Jive's debut follows a slew of internet related listings led by Linked In's strong showing, followed by those of daily deal site Groupon Inc and consumer review website Angie's list.

Online review site Yelp Inc and Facebook game maker Zynga are now next in line to trade on public markets after they filed for their respective IPO's with the US Securities and Exchange in November.

Zynga, whose IPO is set to price on Thursday this week and debut on Friday, is expected to be valued between $7.7 billion and $9.04 billion based on its pricing range.