How it started
From foundation to flotation: April 1998 to March 2000
lastminute.com was founded in London by Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman in 1998 to offer late holiday deals online. The founders were colleagues at media strategy consultants Spectrum.
By January 2000, the site had more than 500,000 regular users and its offerings had expanded to include travel, gifts and entertainment, with a specialisation in selling distressed inventory.
Prior to its flotation, the company raised a further $31m. It opened offices in Paris, Munich and Stockholm. During the ten months ending December 1999, the company handled £37m of transactions, which generated £330,000 of income.
The shares floated on the London Stock Exchange on 14 March 2000. The shares were placed at 380p, valuing the company at £571m. The price rose on the first day of trading to 511p, giving a valuation of £768m, before falling back to 492.5p later in the day. The paper wealth of the founders of the business went up to around £300m.
Two hundred and fifty thousand private investors had applied for shares in the flotation. 33m shares – 25% of the company – were being offered for sale, the bulk to institutional investors. Private applicants received just 35 shares each.
From Wikipedia’s article on lastminute.com, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2