*By Christian Smith*
Software company SolarWinds ($SWI), which went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, isn't concerned about the bumpy market for tech stocks, said CEO Kevin Thompson.
"We've got an advantage that we are a company that grows quickly, but we're incredibly profitable," Thompson said Friday in an interview on Cheddar.
"We generate 50 cents of profit on every dollar of revenue, which allowed us to get out in a market that other software companies really would have been afraid to brave."
Still, there were challenges to bear. The IT management software company not only cut the size of its initial public offering from 42 million shares to 25 million, but also priced its stock at $15 ー the low end of an already-reduced range. The stock closed the day up just $0.03.
SolarWinds isn't new to the public market. The company was previously listed on the New York Stock Exchange from 2009 until it was acquired by private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Silver Lake in 2016.
Thompson said that he learned major lessons from his operation's first stint as a public company.
"You've got to be patient, and you've got to make sure you're able to deliver on all of the commitments you make to Wall Street," Thompson said.
SolarWinds brought in almost $800 million in revenue in for the 12 months ended June 30, 2018.
Thompson said the company didn't need to raise capital, but doing so will help it pay down the debt it took on in going private and to get to its next phase.
"This is really the next step in our evolution," Thompson said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/software-company-solarwinds-goes-public-for-a-second-time).
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
