Debut of Seek delayed

SYDNEY - Seek, Australia's biggest internet job site, postponed its share-trading debut until today amid a sharemarket rout that's wiped more than 4 per cent from the nation's benchmark index in four days.

The shares would start trading at 11am today, the Australian Stock Exchange said at noon yesterday, when the shares had been scheduled to debut. Because of "timetable constraints, allotment was not able to be completed in time to permit trading," Melbourne-based Seek said.

"For reasons that I don't fully understand the allotment of the shares hadn't occurred," Seek chief executive Paul Bassat said in a telephone interview. "It's unfortunate, and it's a little bit embarrassing, but at the end of the day it's only a 24 hour delay." Gervase Green, a spokesman for the exchange, declined to comment on the postponement.

The postponement came as the Australian benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index dropped 1.4 per cent to 3959.40, completing the biggest four-day drop since July 2002.

Seek shares would have fallen 5.5 per cent from their A$2.10 issue price to A$1.99 yesterday, according to a theoretical price calculated by the stock exchange.

"Who knows what the market will be like tomorrow," Bassat said. "We don't have any expectations, but since there was six times more demand than available stocks in the bookbuild, hopefully we'll see strong demand. The business has terrific growth prospects."

Seek sold 77.3 million shares at A$2.10 each, raising A$162.3 million and valuing the company at A$587 million, or 29.6 times forecast earnings.

New York-based Monster Worldwide, which owns internet job site Monster.com, trades at 27.5 estimated earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

Macquarie Bank, Australia's largest listed investment bank, managed the Seek share sale.

Seek forecast its profit before goodwill amortisation for the year ending June 30 will increase 38 per cent to A$19.8 million as the company benefits from rising labour demand and expands into online training.

The company forecast a dividend of 1Ac a share for the current year, which it plans to increase to 7.2Ac in 2006.

Australian billionaire Kerry Packer's Publishing & Broadcasting owns 25 per cent of the company.

- BLOOMBERG