6.5M more Crocs shares

Company also announces co-founder's resignation

By Alicia Wallace, Camera Business Writer

May 26, 2006

Crocs Inc. announced Thursday that its shareholders are headed back to the public market — and a co-founder is resigning from its board of directors.

On Thursday, Crocs filed paperwork for a future secondary offering of 6.5 million shares to be sold by its stockholders. With a closing stock price of $26, the offering would be valued at $169 million, not including underwriter fees. Crocs will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares.

The filing comes nearly four months after the Niwot-based footwear maker's initial public offering, in which it sold 4.95 million shares and raised $94.5 million.

Crocs' (Nasdaq: CROX, $26) share price is up about 24 percent from its opening price of $21.

Secondary public offerings are common to IPOs that have done well in the after-market, said Francis Gaskins, president of research site IPODesktop.com.

"The market would not have favorably accepted that much stock at the time of the IPO because it was tilted too far toward the shareholders," Gaskins said. "But this is more acceptable for everybody. ... When a company's performing, they can do this."

The move makes the company more liquid, he said, and potentially more

Shortly after announcing the offering, Crocs raised its second quarter outlook. The company said it now expects sales to be in the $62 million to $65 million range — up nearly $10 million from before — and that its net income should be in the range of 23 cents to 25 cents per share, which is up from the previous estimates of 21 cents to 22 cents per share.

In a separate filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Crocs announced that co-founder and director George Boedecker resigned from the board on Wednesday.

"Please allow this e-mail to serve as my resignation effective immediately. I want to thank you all for a great experience," said an e-mail from Boedecker that was included in the filing.

Crocs said in a statement that Boedecker resigned to pursue other interests. In the secondary offering filing, Crocs said Boedecker resigned "for personal reasons and did not resign because of a disagreement with our management or on any matter relating to our operations, policies or practices."

Crocs declined additional comment, instead referring to a prepared statement that lauded Boedecker's vision and leadership for taking the company to its current success. Boedecker could not be reached for comment.

Boedecker, a former chief executive officer of the company, currently has control of two Crocs-related entities, according to the SEC filings. Boedecker owns a company that distributes Crocs to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Cuba, and a company that licenses or sells retail kiosks in airport locations.

In an additional announcement, Crocs said it recently signed a lease essentially doubling the size of its corporate headquarters. Crocs said Thursday it inked a multi-year deal for 37,000 square feet at 6328 Monarch Park Place, where about 125 employees will oversee corporate functions.

rocs continues to use 37,250 square feet at 6268 Monarch Park Place, where about 55 employees oversee a warehouse and corporate operations