The IPO Buzz: Intchains (ICG) Prices Leaner IPO at $8.00 Mid-Point Amid Bank Turmoil

Intchains Group (ICG) priced its downsized IPO at $8.00 – the mid-point of its $7.00-to-$9.00 range – on Wednesday night (March 15, 2023). ICG is the second micro-cap deal to get done this week despite the turmoil in the banking sector. Intchains’ IPO – cut to 1.0 million American Depositary Shares from 1.25 million ADS in the prospectus – raised $8.0 million. The Chinese fabless chip maker’s ADS opened flat at $8.00 at 12:03 p.m. today (Thursday, March 16, 2023) in their NASDAQ debut on volume of 138,062 shares. The stock then slipped 11 cents to trade at $7.89 at around 12:20 p.m. EDT. By the closing bell, Intchains’ ADS were trading at $8.00 – right back where they started.

Maxim Group was the sole book-runner.

Intchains’ IPO was priced after the close on Wednesday, March 15, following the U.S. stock market’s slide on trouble at Credit Suisse. Shares of Credit Suisse hit a new low on Wednesday amid the bank’s struggle for financial stability. Credit Suisse shares rebounded today (Thursday, March 16) – up 20 percent on news that the bank would get a $50 billion loan from the Swiss National Bank, according to The Wall Street Journal.

ICZoom (IZM) priced its micro-cap IPO on Tuesday night – becoming the first IPO to get done after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure last Friday. ICZoom’s stock slid on Wednesday in its first day of NASDAQ trading.

Intchains’ holding company, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, offered the ADS in its IPO. The company filed to go public on June 22, 2022. The deal’s original terms called for 3.575 million ADS at $7.00 to $9.00 to raise about $28.6 million. Intchains had rolled on and off the IPO Calendar several times since last fall. It was among several exceptionally small Chinese IPOs that were delayed after the NASDAQ stepped up its scrutiny of small-cap deals.

Powerful Chips for Blockchain

Based in Shanghai, Intchains makes fabless chips, software and hardware for blockchain applications.

 “Our products consist of high-performance ASIC chips that have high computing power and superior power efficiency as well as ancillary software and hardware, which cater to the evolving needs of the blockchain industry,” Intchains says in the prospectus. “We have built a proprietary technology platform named “Xihe” Platform, which allows us to develop a wide range of ASIC chips with high efficiency and scalability. We design our ASIC chips in-house, which enables us to leverage proprietary silicon data to deliver products reflecting the latest technological developments ahead of our competitors.

“We have established strong supply chain management with a leading foundry, which helps to ensure our product quality and stable production output.”

Intchains’ IPO attracted investor interest due to its sector – chips – and its profits.

Financial statements in the prospectus showed that Intchains was highly profitable for the latest 12-month period.

(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on IPOScoop.com’s website.)

Note: Never trade on proposed symbols. They have been known to change and you might buy something on the OTC Bulletin Board. 

To see what time the NASDAQ IPOs are expected to trade, please log in to: NASDAQTrader.com then scroll down to IPO Message. 

Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.

Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums) is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.