SiliconBeat

Investors didn’t seem pleased by the news that SuccessFactors of San Mateo announced it would sell up to 7.5 million more of its shares to the public in an underwritten offering barely six months after its initial public offering, and the first business day after its shareholders meeting Friday. Its shares fell 71 cents, or 6.6 percent, to $10.74. It was the stock’s biggest drop since January.

The company, which sells employee-performance and “talent”-management software intended to automate an enterprise’s HR function, raised nearly $105 million in its IPO last November when it issued more than 11 million shares to the public at $10 a share. In its first day of trading, SuccessFactors stock rose by a third when about half the new shares traded hands. In their brief trading life, the company’s shares have hit a high of $15.27 in December and a low of $7.49 in March.

SuccessFactors said in its announcement today that among the 7.5 million shares in its
proposed secondary offering would be an unidentified number of shares to be sold by its
existing stockholders. Among the insiders selling shares in the IPO was its founder and chief executive, Lars Dalgaard, who sold 600,000 shares.

Dalgaard was paid $876,103 in salary and incentive payments last year and was given stock option awards valued at over $3 million, according to the company’s proxy issued in advance of its May 23 shareholder meeting.

The company has rung up $160.6 million in accumulated debt as of March 31 and had $86.4 million in cash and marketable securities as of March 31, down from $90.8 million at the end of 2007, when the company it said: “We believe our existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and currently available resources will be sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure needs over the next 24 months.”