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Redbox Hires New Executive, Preparing for IPO

Posted on 2008 under news, redbox

VideoBusiness is reporting that Redbox has hired ex-JetBlue CFO John Harvey as their financial chief.

Redbox CEO Gregg Kaplan had this to say about Harvey:

“Harvey brings to Redbox a proven track record of growing companies, extensive leadership experience and strategic financial skills. We will rely on Harvey to lead our financial team and support our corporate growth strategy.”

Harvey helped grow JetBlue Airlines into a successful new airline, one of the few in recent years. Will he bring the same kind of results to Redbox?

Redbox plans to file for their IPO by the end of June, and also plans to have 11,000 kiosks in operation by the end of the year, thanks to their recent deals with Wal-mart and Walgreens.

It seems that Redbox is well on their way to success, the question is will they get bought out by a larger player in the near future? Perhaps that is in their strategy, too.

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Viewing 6 Comments

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    Does anybody know when Redbox will go public? Where can we buy stocks before they go IPO? What's the sybmol?
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    Looking for part time employment in Houston Texas.Who do I contact?
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    Has there been any details released of which brokerage firms will issue the ipo? Would be interested in buying them before they hit the market.
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    Coinstar's ownership is relevant in that they'll own a piece of Redbox after they go public, but part of the reason companies go public is because owners like Redbox (and McDonalds who owns the other half) want out of their investment. They won't share all of their shares in the IPO, so they'll certainly have a lot of influence over who might be allowed to buy them and they've definitely done a great job of integrating Redbox into both McDonald's and Coinstar locations from a strategy perspective, but with them selling shares to the public, it's a sign that they would rather maximize Redbox's value then own them for strategic options. Once they are public a strategic buyer might value the company differently (higher) then Coinstar or even the public markets would. Coinstar could always end up buying the other half and taking it pseudo private, but they probably wouldn't be thinking IPO right now, if they were interested in spending that kind of cash. Of course there's a good chance that Redbox stays a stand alone company which would be fine by me, but whenever you enjoy the type of success they've seen, it will attract suiters who'd rather buy than innovate.
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    How come you don't say that Redbox is owned by Coinstar. Is that not relevant?
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    Since they are going public vs. selling out to a larger company, it makes me suspect that Redbox will stay independent for awhile, but you have to imagine that people will start talking about them as a target, once they are public. The most obvious fit (IMHO) would be Netflix because Redbox addresses the short head demand so well, but they've been so focused on having nothing to do with retail that I think they'd take a pass on this.

    Blockbuster could try and make a grab for them and there would certainly be synergies, but paying for a Redbox acquisition might be too much for them and since Redbox would canibalize Blockbuster sales, I can't imagine that it would be a very good strategic fit for Redbox. Right now, Redbox can only take market share. You'd have to offer them a lot of money for them to want to be put in a position where they'd be at a competitive disadvantage.

    You could always see a wildcard like Apple show up and try to use Redbox as a way to start fighting against Netflix. Apple's done a lot with music downloads, but have a long way to go on the video side. Since there are still so many DVD players out there, its going to take a DVD/VOD hybrid solution in order to gain critical mass in this market. A Redbox purchase by Apple would be atypical from what they normally do, but if they recognized the benefits of the hybrid model early on, it would make a ton of sense for them to try and get this exposure by using the DVD kiosk as a way to differentiate themselves from their competition. They could also throw in support for iTunes sales via USB as a way of slowly converting the DVD luddites over. It might make even more sense for Microsoft to buy them instead though because I know that they are using Windows for their kiosk operating system.

    We probably won't see too much speculation on this until they've been trading for a year, but it's an interesting question to think about. In the near term though, I'm more interested in trying to guess what their market cap will be once they do go public. Depending on how much money they can raise, this could have a big impact on their expansion plans. Who knows, maybe the real question that we should be asking is who is Redbox going to buy once they get that cash infusion?
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