The IPO Buzz: Over the IPO Rainbow

Banco Santander (Brasil) S.A. (NYSE: BSBR – proposed) plans to price 525 million units in the form of American Depositary Shares(ADS) at R$22 to R$24 or US$12.37 to US$14.06 each to raise US$6.94 billion – “B” as in billion.
 
SOME SAMBA MUSIC, PLEASE
 
Banco Santander (Brasil) is a full-service Brazilian bank and part of the Santander Group, one of the world’s largest financial groups. At June 30, 2009, the Santander Group had stockholders’ equity of €66.8 billion and total assets of €1,148.5 billion; it was present in more than 40 countries, serving over 90 million customers through more than 14,000 branches. Banco Santander reported total deposits of R$177.9 billion (US$91.1 billion). That’s not too shabby, but that’s the parent company’s snapshot. Its Brazilian bank’s offering is a different story.
 
Note: Each ADS will represent one unit and each unit will represent 55 common shares and 50 preferred shares. After 180 days from the offering, holders of units may present units for cancellation in Brazil in exchange for the common shares and preferred shares underlying these units.
 
Both the common stock and preferred are trading on BM&FBOVESPA under the symbols “SANB3” and “SANB4”, respectively. Both the common and preferred shares recently traded at R$0.24 per share, which works out to be about 13.4 cents in U.S. currency.
 
Oh yes, the proposed price range was increased to US$12.37 to US$14.06 — UP from US$12.19 to US$13.85 per ADS.
 
The deal is expected to be priced Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, and to trade Wednesday morning, Oct. 7.
 
BACK TO THE BIG APPLE 
It’s back to the Big Apple, or rather just across the Hudson River from New York City’s glittering skyline, for the scene of the week’s other billion-dollar deal.
 
Verisk Analytics   NASDAQ: VRSK – proposed) of Jersey City, New Jersey, plans to offer its IPO of 85.3 million shares at $19 to $21 each to raise $1.7 billion.
 
Verisk provides proprietary data to the insurance industry. The company offers actuarial and underwriting data pertaining to U.S. property and casualty insurance (P&C) risks, solutions for detecting fraud in the U.S. P&C insurance, healthcare and mortgage industries, and methods to predict and quantify loss ranging from natural catastrophes to health insurance.
 
Formed in 1971, the company is well established. For the 12 months ending on June 30, 2009, it posted net income of $168 million on revenues of $958 million.
 
The Verisk deal is expected to be priced Tuesday evening, Oct. 6, and to trade Wednesday morning, Oct. 7.
 
There are two other deals on the calendar and should everything get out the door this week, bankers will have raised $8.8 billion. The last time the dollar volume was heavier was for the week of March 18, 2008, with a total of $18 billion, according U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The Visa (NYSE: V) IPO of 406 million shares at $44 each raised $17.9 billion.
 
In case anybody missed a “WSL blog” story last week, it sourced Venture Source, a research unit of Dow Jones & Co., as saying, “that VCs wanting to see portfolio companies go public need two things these days. The first is patience. The second is a portfolio of private companies founded before 2000 finally ready for the big stage.”
 
There does not, according to Venture Source, appear to be a shortage of that second requirement: “At present, there are about 2,500 venture-backed companies founded before 2000 that are still private.”
 
Now that’s a rainbow worth your while.