NEW YORK (Reuters) - NetSuite Inc, a software maker majority-owned by Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) Chief Executive Larry Ellison, on Tuesday raised the estimated price range for its initial public offering to 16 to 19 per share and said it is conducting the IPO as a modified Dutch auction.
The previous price range for the 6.2 million share offering was 13 to 16 per share.
In an amended filing with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, NetSuite said Credit Suisse, W.R. Hambrecht and Co, E*Trade Securities and JMP Securities were underwriting the IPO.
The San Mateo, California-based company said the stock has been approved for a New York Stock Exchange listing under the symbol "N." (N.N).
The underwriters have an option to purchase up to 565,000 additional shares of common stock from the company and up to 365,000 shares from the selling stockholders, including senior executives and board members.
The auction process, which is being managed electronically through a dedicated Web site, http://www.netsuiteipo.com, kicked off on Monday, NetSuite said in a statement.
The company decided to use the auction format to allow both institutional and individual investors to secure IPO shares, said a source familiar with the transaction.
Typically, institutional investors snap up IPO shares, leaving individual investors out in the cold.
NetSuite plans to use the auction process to set the offerings clearing price, which is the highest price at which all of the shares offered may be sold to investors.
While not common, auction-based IPOs have been used for some high-profile IPOs. Options-trading firm Interactive Brokers Group (IBKR.O) raised 1.2 billion earlier this year, and Google Inc (GOOG.O) used a modified auction format in its 2004 offering.
NetSuite said it would use the proceeds to pay down a line of credit from an Ellison-controlled company which had a balance of 8 million at September 30 and for capital expenditures, including a second data center.
Ellison, who is also Oracles largest shareholder, has said he would transfer his directly owned stake in NetSuite into a "lockbox" company, effectively stripping him of voting rights, to reduce conflict-of-interest concerns, given his large stake in both software companies.
NetSuite targets small and mid-size companies, while Oracles customers are generally large corporations.
(Reporting by Ilaina Jonas and Lilla Zuill in New York, with additional reporting by Avishek Mishra in Bangalore, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
