This filing belongs to a Chicago consulting firm that would later bet everything on the dot-com boom and lose. In 1996 Whittman-Hart was a fast-growing IT services company. It planned, built, and ran computer systems for corporations, billing by the hour. It had grown revenue every year since its founding in 1984. It had gone public that spring at $16 a share. By August, the stock traded near $29.50, and the company filed this S-1 for a second offering.

Billable Hours in Chicago

Robert Bernard was chairman and CEO, and he was 35 when this filing went in. Whittman-Hart sold consultants who worked on client/server, midrange, and enterprise systems. Its pitch was strategic IT work that made clients more productive and more competitive, and most of its revenue came from professional fees billed by the hour. This August 1996 offering priced at $28.50 a share and included shares sold by existing holders.

The Merger That Named It

Whittman-Hart kept growing for four more years on Nasdaq as WHIT. In March 2000 it merged with USWeb/CKS, a web design and marketing firm, to form marchFIRST. The new company promised to build entire online businesses for its clients. The dot-com crash began weeks later, and clients cancelled projects. marchFIRST ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in April 2001.

Cover: March Winds, Winslow Homer. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for March winds (the month of March).