Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

The IPO Buzz: Waiting for Daylight

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
On Friday, Oct. 3, 2008, the Nasdaq Composite Index closed DOWN 31.9 percent from its previous closing high. Ten years ago, on Oct. 8, 1998, the Nasdaq Composite closed DOWN 29.5 percent from its previous closing high. In each case, the IPO market had dried up. By mid-November 1998, IPOs staged a comeback. In today’s market, it’s a case of waiting for daylight.
 
October 5, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Cashing In On Chaos

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
Bailouts and politics sent stock prices on a wild ride on Wall Street this past week. Not surprisingly, the IPO calendar dried up. Surprisingly, the secondary calendar exploded.
September 28, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Riding Out the Storm

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, as the saying goes. And that is exactly what bankers are planning on for this week’s IPO calendar. Last week’s only deal, Fluidigm, didn’t get out the door –- due to a financial storm that raged beyond anyone’s control. (Washington’s now weighing a $700 billion bailout to take bad mortgage debt off banks’ hands, after the feds rescued AIG, let Lehman Brothers file for bankruptcy, and all but held the shotgun so Merrill Lynch would get hitched to Bank of America.)
September 21, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: A Fluid Situation

Last week’s financial stocks fell into a burning ring of fire and went down, down, down. And who knows what this week will bring? Nevertheless, bankers plan to brave the storm and price an IPO. The professionals don’t expect a fiery opening-day moonshot.
September 14, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Fall’s Opening Act

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Just as Broadway’s biggest fans look forward to new plays in the fall, investors watch for the IPO market to come back to life a couple of weeks after Labor Day. This year’s rocky stock market made that reawakening a more dubious proposition until Friday morning, when Wall Street got a pleasant surprise: Fluidigm filed an amendment with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its pending IPO. The company set expected pricing terms. And Morgan Stanley, its investment banker, added the deal to the IPO calendar.     

September 7, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Hide the Report Card

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
No one likes to bring home a bad report card, and Wall Street’s denizens are not immune to that sentiment. As summer comes to an end and the IPO market is in its seasonal hibernation, it’s a good time, though, to take a look at how IPOs have performed so far in 2008.
August 24, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Two Faces of China

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
The gold rush is on at the Beijing Olympics and the Chinese athletes are in the thick of things. In contrast, no one’s been going for the gold when it comes to Chinese IPOs in the U.S. capital markets. Nevertheless, those deals have produced some interesting results.
August 17, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: Into the Tank

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
Rackspace Hosting President and CEO Lanham Napier stepped up to the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning and rang the opening bell. The unexpected happened. He and the company’s executives watched their stock go from a “hot IPO” to a bear market on its opening trade.
August 10, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: A Dirty Dutch Auction

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
Rackspace’s IPO comes to town this week as a “modified” Dutch auction. That could very well leave orders on the table and give the deal a pop. In Asia and Europe, modifying a Dutch auction is called a “dirty” Dutch auction. A “true” Dutch auction sweeps the order book clean and the IPO generally trades flat. Leave it to the Americans to clean up the act.

August 3, 2008 Read More

The IPO Buzz: When Things Go Wrong

 By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.
GT Solar crashed on takeoff. That shocked everybody, especially the IPO handicappers who were looking for an opening-day pop of $1 to $2 per share. Something went wrong.

July 27, 2008 Read More