Exult Raises $60 Million in Initial Offering

Exult Inc., which is developing a service for large corporations to use the Internet to manage human resources, raised $60 million Friday in its initial public offering, less than half what it originally planned.

The Irvine company, whose main client is BP Amoco PLC, sold 6 million shares at $10 each after cutting the size of its sale by a third and slashing the asking price from as high as $15.

The stock moved narrowly Friday in Nasdaq trading before closing unchanged at $10 a share on volume of 4.4 million shares.

When Exult first filed for its IPO in March, it said it hoped to raise as much as $200 million. Since then, however, the Nasdaq Composite Index has slumped, taking the value of many technology companies with it and sapping the appetite of investors for new issues.

Exult “is a highly ambitious and extremely experimental offering,” said Irv DeGraw, research director at WorldFinanceNet.com. “Presently, all activities, including the crucial Internet portal software, remain under development.”

Exult wants companies to farm out to it more of their human resources functions. A market for a broader range of services is emerging because of the challenges of managing thousands of employees within different time zones, all subject to varying legal regulations from country to country, the company says.

“Exult is attempting to take the outsourcing model to a new level, fully outsourcing all human relations functions while using the Internet as a processing and communications vehicle,” DeGraw said.

Exult’s revenue is being driven by a single contract with BP Amoco, potentially worth as much as $600 million, WorldFinanceNet said. Exult reported a loss of $10.9 million on revenue of $5.58 million in the three months ended March 31.

Exult said it needs more clients if it is to become profitable.