The IPO Buzz: An IPO Trio for Halloween Week

Just three IPOs are on the calendar this week, when Halloween falls on Thursday.  That’s a wrap as well for October.  A cannabis SPAC, a biotech and an online platform for Chinese real estate agents are in this week’s IPO mix.

Bankers expect these three deals to raise $283 million, based on the midpoint of their price ranges.

If all goes according to plan, October 2019 will go down in the IPO annals as just about average – with the pricing of 19 IPOs. Data for the month of October over the past 18 years – from 2001 through 2018 – show that October produced 19.8 IPOs on average, according to IPOScoop’s records.

The parade is likely to start early. The cannabis-focused special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) is set for pricing Monday night. Next up:  The biotech IPO is scheduled for pricing Wednesday night. And the online Chinese real estate platform’s offering is expected to be priced Thursday night. Let’s take a look at this light Halloween-week IPO menu, organized by pricing and trading dates.

Monday night pricing for trading Tuesday morning:

Merida Merger (MCMJU proposed) is a New York-based SPAC or “blank check” company that describes itself this way, according to the prospectus:  “Our initial business combination and value creation strategy will be to identify, acquire and, after our initial business combination, assist in the growth of a business in the legal cannabis industry.”

This is a unit offering of 10 million units at $10 each to trade on the NASDAQ.

Wednesday night pricing for trading Thursday morning:

Oyster Point Pharma (OYST proposed) is a Princeton, N.J.-based clinical-stage biopharma company focused on developing a nasal spray to treat dry eye disease.

This is an IPO of 5 million shares at $16 to $18 each to trade on the NASDAQ.

Thursday night pricing for trading Friday morning:

Fanggd Network Group (DUO proposed) is a Shenzhen, China-based company. Fanggd Network says in its prospectus that it is China’s largest online real estate marketplace, in terms of the number of registered agents, with over 911,000 registered agents as of Dec. 31, 2018, according to Frost & Sullivan. The SaaS online cloud platform is backed by a big property database. Fanggd Network serves Chinese real estate agents by making it easier for them to connect with customers and conduct business through access to property listings, capital and transaction data. (SaaS stands for Software as a Service.)

This is an IPO of 7 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) at $13 to $15 each to trade on the NASDAQ.

(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Profiles on IPOScoop.com.)

Week of Nov. 4th

Only three deals are on the IPO Calendar so far for the week of Nov. 4, 2019, but one of those is a blockbuster in size – the $1.9 billion IPO of GFL Environmental Holdings (GFL proposed). Next week’s IPO Calendar could pick up more names when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s IPO filing window opens again for business on Monday morning.

Stay tuned.

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.