The IPO Buzz: A Better-Than-Usual November

Two IPOs slipped on to the IPO Calendar late Thursday afternoon for pricing during the week of Nov. 18. That gave Wall Street some IPO action for the third week of November, when previously there was none. This isn’t to say that things have turned quiet. November 2019 is off to a better-than-usual start.(There’s just one IPO on tap this week – a carryover biotech deal.)

Sixteen IPOs have started trading in November so far.

The average November volume is 17 IPOs, based on an 18-year track record for the month of November from 2001 through 2018, according to IPOScoop’s records.

A year ago, the month of November produced 11 IPOs.

So this November – with 16 new public companies making their debuts on U.S. stock exchanges – is ahead of the year-ago traffic. It’s also nipping at the heels of the 18-year average of 17 IPOs in November – and there’s still 20 days to go. (All of these figures include unit offerings. This week’s only IPO was priced this morning.)

The U.S. stock market’s strength is priming the IPO pump. All three major U.S. stock indexes hit record highs last week.

Monday is a federal holiday for Veterans Day, but the U.S. stock market will be open.

The Carryover

This week, only one deal is on the IPO Calendar – 89bio – a carryover from last week.

89bio (ETNB proposed), based in San Francisco, is the carryover, with a pricing date listed as “the week of Nov. 11” for this biotech IPO of 4.4 million shares at $15 to $17 each on the NASDAQ. (Update: On Monday morning, 89bio announced the pricing of its IPO – increased to 5.3 million shares – at $16. The stock was trading at $18.52 shortly after noon EST, up nearly 16 percent from its IPO price. See The IPO Calendar on IPOScoop.com’s website for pricing details.)

This is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing a drug to treat NASH, a type of non-alcoholic liver disease that can cause liver failure.

Chips & A REIT – Week of Nov. 18

Two new faces are featured on the IPO Calendar for the week of Nov. 18. Bankers expect to raise a total of $210.2 million from these two deals.

Let’s take a look at the two new names recently added to the calendar, organized by pricing and trading dates.

Wednesday night pricing, Nov. 20, to trade Thursday, Nov. 21:

SiTime (SITM proposed, based in Santa Clara, California, is “a leading provider of silicon timing systems solutions,” the prospectus says. The company makes silicon-based timing products used in the automotive industry (cars’ navigation systems, for example) as well as in the aerospace and defense industry, in smartphones, tech wearables and the Internet of Things, and in the industrial, communications and consumer sectors.

Digital cameras, tablets, e-readers, set-top boxes and consumer entertainment devices use SiTime’s MEMS wafers, according to this explanatory article published Aug. 22, 2013, by Electronic Design. The magazine’s online story also notes: “On the communications side, they (these products) go into switches, routers, base stations, solid-state drives, and cloud storage.”

SiTime is a subsidiary of Japan’s MegaChips Corp.

The SiTime deal is an IPO of 4.3 million shares at $13 to $15 each on the NASDAQ.

Thursday night pricing, Nov. 21, to trade Friday, Nov. 22:

Alpine Income Property Trust (PINE proposed), based in Daytona Beach, Florida, is a newly organized real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and operates a portfolio of single-tenant commercial properties. The company’s initial portfolio consists of 20 single-tenant retail and office properties in 15 markets in 10 states. The company plans to pay a dividend of 20 cents a share, or 80 cents a share on an annualized basis, the prospectus says.

The Alpine REIT is an IPO of 7.5 million shares at $19 to $21 each on the New York Stock Exchange.

Looking Ahead

There are two deals set so far for the week of Nov. 18 – and nothing yet for Thanksgiving week, the final week of November. But that could change when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s filing window reopens for business on Tuesday morning. (The SEC is closed Monday for Veterans Day.)

Stay tuned.

(Editor’s Note: This column, initially published Nov. 10, has been corrected to show that the SiTime and Alpine deals are on tap for next week and not this week – and updated to include the 89bio pricing today, Nov. 11.)

Disclosure: Neither the author nor anyone else on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned, nor do we trade or invest in IPOs. The author and IPOScoop.com staff do not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.