This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Shares of Control4 Corp., a Salt Lake City-based company that provides home automation systems, made their trading debut on the Nasdaq stock market Friday morning.
The company, which was founded in 2003 and has automated more than 120,000 homes since then, sold 4 million shares of its stock for $16 each, raising $64 million.
At the close of trading Friday, the company's shares were $20.05, up $4.05 (25.31 percent) per share for the day.
In midday trading, the company's shares were up $3.40 over their initial offering price, or 21.25 percent.
"This is one important day of many more to come," said Martin Plaehn, Control4's president and chief executive. "There are tens of millions of families that can benefit from our technology and our goal is to connect the devices in those homes so they can all work together and improve people's lives."
Control4 reported in its registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission that it generated revenue of $74.9 million in its 2010 fiscal year, which resulted in a loss of $16.3 million. It posted revenue of $93.4 million in fiscal 2011 and saw a loss that year of $3.9 million. In 2012, the company generated revenue of $109.5 million, while incurring a loss of $3.7 million.
Even before going public, Control4 had some big name supporters.
In February, Cisco Systems announced it had entered into a partnership with the Utah company to offer products using Control4's technology. And under that partnership, the two companies indicated they will be delivering products that enable residents to control the lighting, heating and cooling, security and other systems in their homes.
Plaehn said the company's IPO went smoothly and there were no surprises.
"Our management team has been working together and running this company as if it were public for many quarters now," he said. "We built a team [to take Control4 public] that had a lot of experience."
Control4's offering was managed by BofA Merrill Lynch and Raymond James.
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