Mobileye made a big splash by filing to go public late Friday. Mobileye Global Inc. (MBLY proposed), Intel’s self-driving car unit, popped up with its S-1 filing in the SEC’s EDGAR database nearly an hour after the closing bell. Wall Street had already moved on to the weekend – cocktails on the rocks or not – with hopes of temporarily forgetting the rotten third quarter, which ended on Friday. (Editor’s Note: This column was updated Monday morning with more details on Mobileye and the IPO Calendar.)
No word yet on terms or timing. But Mobileye’s IPO is expected to be a $1 billion-plus blockbuster. Some IPO professionals believe the deal could raise up to $2.5 billion.
Mobileye, an Israeli company, has been on the watch list of highly anticipated IPOs for more than a year. Mobileye filed confidential IPO documents with the SEC on March 2, 2022. It’s interesting that Mobileye made its move by filing its S-1 (dated Sept. 30, 2022) just as the third quarter was ending. If the IPO gets done in the fourth quarter – and if it’s successful – Mobileye could jump-start the struggling IPO market.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the lineup of 10 joint book-runners. The team includes Evercore ISI, Barclays, Citigroup, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets, Mizuho, Wolfe Nomura Alliance and BNP Paribas.
This will be the second time around for Mobileye as a publicly traded company.
“Prior to being acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion in 2017, we completed an initial public offering in 2014 and traded under the symbol “MBLY” on the New York Stock Exchange,” the prospectus says.
This time, Mobileye reclaimed “MBLY” as its proposed stock symbol but switched its listing to the NASDAQ.
The IPO could give Mobileye a valuation of about $30 billion, Bloomberg reported in mid-September, citing people with knowledge of Intel’s trimming of expectations. On Dec. 6, 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported in an “exclusive” that Mobileye was planning to announce plans to go public, possibly “as soon as this week,” in a deal that “could value Mobileye at north of $50 billion.” At that time, the buzz was that a Mobileye IPO would probably happen by mid-2022.
Intel will stay in the driver’s seat at Mobileye. After the IPO, Intel will own all of the outstanding shares of Mobileye’s Class B stock, the prospectus says. Mobileye will be a “controlled company” under NASDAQ’s corporate governance standards.
Some of the IPO proceeds will be used to repay part of Mobileye’s debt to Intel.
Mobileye, based in Jerusalem, was founded in Israel in 1999. Amnon Shashua, a co-founder, is the president and the CEO.
The prospectus says that Mobileye is a leader in the development and deployment of advanced driver assistance systems (“ADAS”) and autonomous driving technologies and solutions. Mobileye believes that self-driving cars are the future.
“We pioneered ADAS technology more than 20 years ago and have continuously expanded the scope of our ADAS offerings, while leading the evolution to autonomous driving solutions,” according to the prospectus.
“As of July 2, 2022, our solutions had been installed in approximately 800 vehicle models (including local country, year, and other vehicle model variations), and our EyeQ System-on-Chips (“SoCs”) had been deployed in over 117 million vehicles,” the prospectus says.
Mobileye estimates that its ADAS solutions will be deployed in more than another 226 million vehicles by 2030.
Tier 1 OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) customers include Audi, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Toyota, Rivian and Volkswagen, as well as China’s Geely and Great Wall Motors and India’s Mahindra & Mahindra.
But all that does not add up to profits. Mobileye reported a net loss of $138 million on revenues of $1.54 billion for the 12 months that ended July 2, 2022.
Mobileye disclosed that its operations are affected by the global shortage of chips, according to a summary of “Risk Factors” that begins on page 14 of the prospectus.
“We have experienced and are continuing to experience constraints in the supply of our EyeQ® SoCs as the result of the global semiconductor shortage, and future shortages in the supply of our EyeQ® SoCs or other critical parts would adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition,” the prospectus says.
October’s Quiet Start
The first week of October is off to a quiet start. One small biotech IPO – Aloxpexx, Inc. (ALPX proposed) – is on the IPO Calendar for pricing Thursday night (Oct. 6, 2022) to trade Friday, Oct. 7, 2022, on the NASDAQ.
Trading desks and other Wall Street precincts may be thinly staffed early in the week. Yom Kippur, the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, begins at sunset on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022, and ends at sunset on Wednesday, Oct. 5th.
In the meantime, more names could slip onto the IPO Calendar for this week or next as the filings flow into the SEC.
Stay tuned.
(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.