Caught up in the holiday hubbub last month was the news that Avid began trading again on the NASDAQ stock market as of December 8, 2014.
The company had been working to gain re-acceptance to the NASDAQ exchange ever since February of last year, when its stock was delisted following compliance problems with its financial statements dating back to 2009. Its stock began trading on the OTC Markets – OTC Pink Tier at that time.
Avid completed its restatements in September 2014 and subsequently applied for approval to be re-listed on NASDAQ. That approval was announced on December 4, 2014 and trading began several days later.
To celebrate, Avid Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Louis Hernandez, Jr. will be ringing the opening trading bell at NASDAQ headquarters in New York tomorrow morning, Friday, January 16.
In a press release today, Hernandez, Jr. said, “While there is still so much more to do, we have made tremendous progress over the past two years. We thank NASDAQ for the honor of opening the trading day, and remain grateful to our customers, partners, employees, and shareholders for their ongoing support.”
Investors willing to take a bet on the company during the risky times of last year have been rewarded. Yesterday Avid’s stock closed at $14.98 — more than three times its closing price of $4.93 immediately before it was delisted on February 25, 2014.
Updated January 16 with a photo from the opening bell.
Robert Puff
Thanks for posting, this, Philip.
Let’s hope that the current CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. will continue to grow the company and the product line, which, lest anyone forget, includes Sibelius. His predecessor certainly didn’t make any friends within the ProTools or Sibelius communities.
In terms of both business and innovation, I personally disagree with the announced strategy to move Avid to a cloud and subscription based business model, as don’t see this as a good fit for Avid’s mix of professional, semi professional and amateur customers – we’ll see if company growth and customer satisfaction manage to stay in lockstep.
Philip Rothman
Thanks, Robert. Back in April, when I interviewed Avid’s Andrew Wild about Avid Everywhere, I asked about subscription and cloud based software. He said “We will never force you into a model that doesn’t work for you.” Hopefully that will still be the case.
Peter Roos
That is great news – thanks for sharing Philip.
E. Allmond
I’m currently using the Adobe platform as a cloud subscription. One of the biggest software disappointments in my like, and not at all a good fit professionally, especially when working and mentoring. Should this happen with Sibelius, I simply will stop buying product.
E. Allmond
hmmm… i’ve been rather harsh. Allow me to refine: The cloud subscription has been buggy, and caused me to re-authorize programs several times. Also, at times when I need to work quickly to get something done for a client, I’ve had to wait through “program not responding” messages that do always finally get resolved, but cost valuable time. I’m aware of the move toward cloud-based software, but to test product access on the backs of those who need to work with the product is not a good fit.