Corel files for IPO in U.S. and Canada

Corel Corp. wants to go public — again.

The Ottawa, Canada, company Tuesday announced that it has filed government documents to sell common shares in both the U.S. and Canada. Corel has filed a Registration Statement on Form F-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a preliminary prospectus with securities regulators in Canada to prepare for an initial public offering (IPO).

Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. will act as lead manager for Corel’s IPO, with JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Piper Jaffray, CIBC World Markets and Canaccord Adams acting as co-managers, according to the company.

According to the SEC filing, company revenue for the three months ended Feb. 28, 2006 was US$44.3 million, a 2.5 percent increase over the same time period the previous year, when revenue was $43.2 million. Income from operations was $5.7 million for three months ended Feb. 28, 2006, a 67.6 percent increase over income from operations of $3.4 million last year, Corel said in its filing.

Corel, founded in 1985, was once well-known as a pioneer in word-processing and graphics software. But the company, which went public for the first time in 1989, began fading from view in the late 1990s as Microsoft Office became the de facto standard for word processing and other office productivity applications.

The company tried a different tack and embraced Linux in its early days, but then-Corel Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Cowpland became embroiled in an insider-trading scandal. He eventually reached a settlement over the charges with Canadian authorities.

Three years ago San Francisco-based venture capital firm Vector Capital purchased Corel and took the company private, and it has slowly been growing its business in the interim.