Utah's Control4 poised to go public

Control4 Corp., a Salt Lake City-based company that provides home automation systems, is expected to go public next week.

The company will be selling some 4 million shares of its stock for $15 to $17 per share, raising as much as $68 million, according to Renaissance Capital, a Greenwich, Conn.-based investment company that tracks the IPO market.

The firm plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol CTRL.

Control4 was founded in 2003 and, according to its initial registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, estimates that it has automated more than 120,000 homes. It has some 330 employees.

"We sell and deliver our solutions through an extensive worldwide dealer and distributor network and have solutions installed in 81 countries,'' it said in its registration statement. ``Our top 100 dealers represented 24% of our total revenue in 2012."

Still, the company indicates that it has experienced losses and negative cash flow from operations "for substantially all of our history" and as of March 31, 2013 had an accumulated deficit of $107.1 million.

Control4 reported that in its 2010 fiscal year it generated revenue of $74.9 million, 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.

The Utah company, though, has 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 company indicated they will be delivering products that enable residents to automate and control the lighting, heating and cooling, security and other systems in their homes.

Control4's offering will be managed by BofA Merrill Lynch and Raymond James.

steve@sltrib.com

Twitter: OberbeckBiz