SiliconBeat

OpenTable, the San Francisco-based developer of an electronic reservation booking system for restaurants, moved closer to pushing its proposed initial public offering out the door Tuesday when it estimated a price range of between $12 and $14 per-share price for the 3 million shares it plans to sell the public for the first time. At the high end, the offering would generate $42 million. About half of that would go to current shareholders selling some of their own stake in the IPO.

The pricing was part of a fourth amendment the company filed Tuesday to its original registration statement, which it updated with results for its quarter ended March 31. Sales for the quarter totaled $16 million, 21 percent higher than the comparable quarter the year before. Better yet, the company posted a $366,000 profit, compared with an $87,000 loss in the year-before quarter and a $1 million loss for all of 2008.

The news was especially welcome given the caveat the company included in its initial registration statement we posted about earlier this year which essentially warned that  the “majority of our restaurant customers are fine-dining restaurants which have been particularly affected by economic downturns such as the one we are currently experiencing.”

The fact that the company could turn a profit in such a dismal economic environment is especially good news for the folks who are planning on selling some of their own shares in the IPO, including Joel Brown, the company’s chief operating officer who plans to sell 36,000 shares, or 14 percent of his current stake, that would fetch $504,000 at the stated price. Also wanting to sell in the IPO is Michael Dodson, senior vice president of sales, who plans to sell 32,000 shares, or 12 percent of his holdings, and Charlie McCullough, senior vice president for engineering who plans to sell 16,000 shares, or six percent of his current holdings.

The companies principal venture investors, which among them own 62 percent of the company, include Benchmark Capital, Impact Venture Partners and Integral Capital Partners, along with IAC/Interactive, the diversified online company run by Barry Diller. None of them are selling shares in the IPO. Nor is the company’s CEO, ex-PayPal president Jeff Jordan, or the company’s chief financial officer, Matthew Roberts, formerly with E-LOAN.