Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

You’re going to hear a lot about the summer doldrums starting early this year, with the IPO ship just about stalled. Nothing was priced last week, which happened to be the first week of June. There’s just one deal on this week’s calendar. And there are only two in the third week of June. But don’t believe everything you hear –- or read. The irony is this: There is no such thing as a “summer doldrums” period for the IPO market. It’s a myth.

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Just because the IPO market is in the doldrums with only a handful of deals getting out the door in May, this could be the quiet before the storm. The pipeline is loaded with well over a dozen “hot issues” that are on everybody’s “most wanted” list.

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

The Sino-Global Shipping America (NASDAQ: SINO) IPO popped for an opening-day gain of 80.4 percent when it started trading last week, and closed Friday with a jump of 135.6 percent from its initial offering price. The deal was not on anybody’s new-issues calendar. There was a reason. It was a “best efforts” offering.

 

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Should you pass by the IPO Cemetery this week, you might notice some things rustling among the tombstones in the midnight mist. It’s the SPACs, or “blank check” companies, which many had written off, buried and left for dead. A couple have started coming to life and are surfacing on the IPO calendar.

 

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

While Washington has been working overtime to bail out Wall Street from its binge on mortgage debt, some people in the IPO market have come up with a novel way to play “cover your Fannie.” In this case, a new real estate investment trust, or REIT, plans to go public this week and use the proceeds to invest in mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. buyer of home loans, or its slightly smaller rival, Freddie Mac, or their lower profile “cousin,” Ginnie Mae.

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Watching the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing window can be interesting. Since late March, 19 companies have filed plans to go public, five have priced their IPOs and five have withdrawn their deals. Those numbers signal a positive climate. And during that time, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) has come up with a pair of firsts for itself.

 

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Last week’s traffic underscored the fact that we have a market for IPOs, not an IPO market. And that’s not all that bad. Wall Street has always been subject to change. The new-issues market has been known to give early warning signals when it’s coming back to life.

 

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

As the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thunder through the Valley of IPOs this week, they’ll be joined by another noteworthy steed. This one does not bring conquest, war, famine and death. It brings life. It is Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI proposed) and it comes from the hot potash industrial sector.

 

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

During the dog days of a stock market pullback, size counts when it comes to pricing IPOs. This year’s first quarter for IPOs boiled down to one word — Visa (NYSE:V), a $17.9 billion blockbuster. This year’s second quarter for IPOs has yet to start, but when it does, there is another billion-dollar IPO on the calendar – American Water Works (NYSE: AWK proposed). It is looking to raise $1.6 billion.

By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Will Rogers once said, “All I know is what I read in the papers.” But don’t believe everything you read from the financial media’s online news services. In early March, they were running gloom-and-doom headlines that a total of 61 global IPOs had been withdrawn in 2008. No mention was made of filings.