A few months after fixed-wireless broadband provider Clearwire Corp. raised $600 million from its IPO, smaller rival Towerstream Corp. will try its luck on Wall Street.
Towerstream will start trading shares of its common stock Thursday on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol “TWER.” It plans to offer up to $40 million of shares of its common stock.
And while it’s the first time for Towerstream on the exchange market, the Rhode Island-based company has been trading on the NASD OTC Bulletin Board since January. Towerstream’s common stock will continue to trade over-the-counter until the markets close this afternoon.
The company has had an interesting year. In January, it conducted a reverse merger to raise money by acquiring a failing company that already had a public listing. That company was University Girls Calendar Ltd, a producer of calendars of college girls in Canada.
University Girls Calendar, based in Nevada, then changed its name to Towerstream Corp. Towerstream CEO Jeff Thompson has told various media that the strategy gave Towerstream the money it needed so it wouldn’t have to sell to private investors or aim for a much-hyped IPO that wouldn’t have happened or would have fallen on its face. The University Girls Calendar deal helped Towerstream raise a little more than $14 million, Thompson has said.
Thompson will ring the Nasdaq opening bell on Friday morning.
“Joining the NASDAQ raises our awareness among the investment community, while increasing liquidity and bringing us greater exposure with institutional investors,” he said in a news release.
Towerstream targets businesses in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Newport, R.I., New York City, Providence, R.I., San Francisco and Seattle.
Clearwire Corp. www.clearwire.com
Towerstream Corp. www.towerstream.com
