SAS rules out IPO within two years

Clearly no 'who dares wins' strategy for this SAS...

Software company SAS has ruled out an IPO for the next two years. The company originally flirted with the idea of going public in 1999 following pressure from employees keen to cash-in on the tech industry boom. Employee fervour has now subsided. A survey by the company late last year revealed that 87 per cent of staff did not favour a float in the current climate. Jim Davis, chief marketing officer and a member of the company's IPO committee, explained that the world's largest privately held company would only issue public shares if it was looking to make a very large acquisition worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The company currently has $500m in the bank and last year turned over $1.13bn in revenue. However, Davis is concerned about the company's need to gain more exposure and is keen to court some of the attention usually only afforded to publicly traded companies.