Stamps.com’s Shares Soar 35% on News It Will Create Ticketing Unit

Stamps.com Inc. shares rose 35% on Tuesday after the Internet postage company unveiled plans to provide online ticketing and printing services for events, travel and financial services companies.

Shares of Stamps.com climbed $18.50 to close at $71.75 on Nasdaq as 3.1 million shares changed hands, almost five times the three-month daily average. Earlier, the shares rose to a record $78.75.

The Santa Monica-based company had its initial public stock offering in June at $11.

Stamps.com, which offers a service for purchasing and printing postage via the Web, said it will provide the additional services through a new unit, EncrypTix. The unit will use Stamps.com’s technology to enable companies to distribute tickets, gift certificates, coupons, vouchers and boarding passes over the Internet to customers who can print the documents.

“The announcement is compelling as it affords them the opportunity to leverage their existing authentication technology to include airline, movie and concert tickets and travelers checks,” said Ryan Alexander, an analyst at Wit Capital Corp., who rates the stock “outperform.”

EncrypTix will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Stamps.com, though the company said it eventually will seek outside investors. The unit will be led by Jim Rowan, a former senior vice president and director of SunAmerica Inc.

Stamps.com said that as of late October, more than 100,000 people had registered for its postage service. The postage is sold in the form of machine-readable codes that are printed on envelopes with ordinary laser or inkjet printers.