Herald staff
BOTHELL — SonoSite Inc. offered 2.7 million shares to the public Wednesday to help the maker of portable ultrasound equipment shore up its financial position.
The equity sale could raise nearly $44 million for SonoSite. Shares were priced at $17.25 each, although the company’s stock price ended the day at $17.10, down 2 percent from Tuesday.
The Bothell-based company already had $33.6 million in cash at the end of the first quarter, but it would like to be in a better position to expand into new markets and take on the competition.
"This cash is really to help them market. They’re getting together a war chest," said Jan David Wald, senior health-care analyst with A.G. Edwards in Minneapolis.
The company’s biggest battle is likely to be with giant General Electric, already is promoting a hand-carried ultrasound model called the Logiq Book, though it has not yet hit the market.
Kevin Goodwin, chief executive at SonoSite, has agreed his company needs to expand into new markets, but he is not particularly worried about GE’s competing product. GE’s model reportedly is not as compact as SonoSite’s, and the Bothell company’s products are already well-established in the medical industry. Since late 1999, SonoSite has shipped more than 6,000 units of its flagship ultrasound device.
Spun off from ATL Ultrasound in 1998, SonoSite lost $12.8 million in the first quarter, but Goodwin has predicted the company could show a profit late this year or early in 2003.
A.G. Edwards rates SonoSite’s stock, which has been as high as $28 during the past year, as a "hold" at present, Wald said.
"They’re doing better now than they were a year ago, so that’s a good sign," he said.
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