wide swath of companies, from Glencore to Lagardère

A wide swath of companies, from Glencore to Lagardère, are postponing long-awaited initial public offerings as the markets roil from developments in Japan and the Middle East.( NIKON EN-4 battery)

But one company appears willing to take the plunge and reassert that it will still seek to become a public company: FriendFinder Networks, whose holdings include Penthouse magazine and a variety of online properties both pornographic and not.( NIKON EN-EL1 battery)

Related Links

FriendFinder said Thursday that it was refiling the paperwork necessary to take itself public.( NIKON EN-EL2 battery) The media company had withdrawn its offering last year citing, of all things, market conditions.

So far, the company has not indicated how much money it is seeking to raise or how many of its more than 6.5 million shares will be sold.

Proceeds from the offering are meant to pay down the company’s $510 million debt load.( NIKON EN-EL3 battery)

FriendFinder’s business has been improving, as its revenue rose three years in a row to about $346 million in 2010. It reported a $43.2 million loss last year on a generally accepted accounting principles basis, a nearly 5 percent increase over 2009, although its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization came to $74 million.( NIKON EN-EL5 battery)

Using what the company called adjusted earnings, which account for a litany of what FriendFinder said were nonrecurring charges and gains, it reported about $105.4 million. (NIKON EN-EL4 battery)

FriendFinder said it had 196 million worldwide unique users in December, according to the filing. The company added that it had averaged about one million subscribers every month for 2010.( NIKON EN-EL7 battery)

FriendFinder’s offering is being managed by Imperial Capital and Ladenburg Thalmann, switching over from Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) and Ledgemont Capital Markets.( NIKON EN-EL8 battery)

next blog: UN Security Council authorizes military strikes on Libya