No IPO for NameMedia

NameMedia, the parent company of GoldKey, ActiveAudience, and SmartName, announced on Christmas Eve that it has given-up on its plans to go public. The timing of the announcement pretty much guaranteed that many people would miss it.  The company filed for the anticipated $172.5 million initial public offering in November 2007. A little over a year later they admitted that current market conditions are too poor to go forward.

NameMedia is based in Waltham, Massachusetts and also owns BuyDomains and Afternic.  The company was rumored to have some layoffs a while back as well, but their core businesses seem to be performing reasonably well given the current market.  Pulling back the IPO seems like the only real choice that they had, though.  They might have been able to make a go of it a year ago, but if they had gone public their stock price would have tumbled with the recent financial crisis.