NEW YORK-PageMart Wireless Inc., a Dallas-based wireless messaging company ranked among the largest in the nation, went public June 13 with the sale of six million shares of common stock priced at $13 each.
Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc., New York, was lead underwriter of the initial public offering. The investment bank, through various subsidiaries and partnerships, was a majority shareholder prior to the IPO. Before the sale, Morgan Stanley held 60.4 percent of the outstanding common stock and 48.9 percent of the outstanding voting common stock.
After the sale closes, Morgan Stanley shareholders will own about 50 percent of the outstanding common stock and just under 40 percent of the outstanding voting common stock. Representatives of the investment bank will retain four of the nine seats on PageMart’s board of directors.
PageMart’s exclusive licenses include two nationwide paging frequencies and 150 kilohertz of nationwide narrowband personal communications service frequencies, known as NPCS. The NPCS licenses comprise 100 kilohertz of forward frequency and 50 kilohertz of return frequency. The company plans to use these licenses to offer either two-way messaging or to expand its one-way messaging capacity.
The company plans to use $50 million of the proceeds of the IPO to construct its NPCS transmission network. Another $13 million will retire PageMart’s vendor debt. Some $8 million will go toward general corporate purposes, including repayment of loans the company anticipates taking out of a revolving credit facility in order to finance capital expenses associated with its one-way paging operations.
By year end, PageMart plans to begin marketing, on a city-by-city basis, two-way data and stored voice services. The two-way data offerings may include guaranteed alphanumeric message delivery with acknowledgement, as well as message-with-response capabilities.
Next year, PageMart plans to introduce VoiceMart, a trademarked name for a service that will permit subscribers to receive stored voice messages directly into their messaging devices.
