Digital Globe goes IPO this week; 5th largest in the US this year

The Longmont, Colorado-based company originally filed to go public in April of last year. Its offering comes at an ideal time as it may get a boost from the Obama administration's plans to use more commercial satellite imagery for intelligence gathering.

The company offers a library of earth imagery used in commercial, defense, intelligence, and civil government applications. Last year alone, it derived three-quarters of its 2008 revenue from the U.S. government.

Digital Globe plans to sell 14.7 million shares at $16-18 each. If shares sell at the high-end of this range, the company’s valuation could potentially be in excess of $800 million. It will trade under the ticker symbol “DGI” and it will be the 5th IPO of the year in the United States.

The company, which had revenues of $275 million and net income of $53 million in 2008, would see only a fraction of the cash from the IPO as over 90 percent of the shares included are owned by existing investors.