The IPO Buzz: Summer’s Embers

Six deals – three healthcare IPOs and three SPACs – are on tap this week, proving that the embers of this summer’s IPO campfire are still glowing. Bankers expect to raise $1.1 billion.

A week ago, the IPO Calendar had six deals. By the close on Friday, 12 IPOs had been priced – and six of those were SPACs (special-purpose acquisition companies). The filings kept streaming in at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as companies unveiled their plans to go public or fine-tuned their prospectuses with S-1/A or F-1/A filings. (For details on the flood of filings, click on Archive at the bottom of the IPOScoop.com home page and then click on IPO Traffic: Week Ending Aug. 14, 2020.)

One moonshot streaked across the late summer sky. CureVac B.V. (CVAC), a German company with a potential COVID-19 vaccine, a potential rabies vaccine and a cancer-fighting drug candidate in Phase I clinical trials, was priced Thursday night, Aug. 13th, at $16. CureVac’s stock closed its first day of trading on NASDAQ on Friday, Aug. 14th, at $55.90, for a whopping gain of 249.38 percent. (A moonshot is a gain of 100 percent or more on an IPO’s first day of trading.)

Let’s take a look now at the six companies scheduled to go public this week. The IPOs are organized by pricing and trading date.

 A Trio of SPACs

Wall Street’s fascination with SPACs, also known as blank-check companies, is still dominating the IPO conversation. All three SPACs on this week’s IPO Calendar are set for pricing Monday night.

Monday night pricing for Tuesday trading:

CSR Acquisition (CSRA.U proposed), based in Wilmington, Delaware, is a blank check company or a SPAC whose founder and CEO is Clifton S. Robbins. He spent 13 years with private equity behemoth Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts & Co. (KKR), where he was a general partner, and 16 years with Blue Harbour Group, an activist hedge fund that he founded. Robbins is known for evaluating companies on their social impact, an approach defined as ESG investing. (ESG stands for environmental, social and corporate governance.)

This is an IPO of 30 million units at $10 each to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

NavSight Holdings (NSH.U proposed), based in Reston, Virginia, is a SPAC that intends to focus its search for a target business on companies with expertise in national security, intelligence and defense.

This is an IPO of 20 million units at $10 each to trade on the NYSE.

Northern Genesis Acquisition (NGA.U proposed), based in Kansas City, Missouri, intends “to focus on opportunities making a positive contribution to sustainability through the ownership, financing and management of societal infrastructure,” according to the prospectus. Its founders and top executives have extensive investment and management experience in energy infrastructure and utilities.

This is an IPO of 30 million units at $10 each to trade on the NYSE.

Healthcare on the Brain

The rest of this week’s IPO Calendar belongs to the healthcare sector, with three deals in the offing.

Tuesday night pricing for Wednesday trading:

Harmony Biosciences Holdings (HRMY proposed), based in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, is a commercial-stage pharmaceutical company whose leading product is a drug called WAKIX to treat excessive daytime sleepiness, also called narcolepsy. This drug is the first-and-only FDA-approved product for patients with narcolepsy that is not classified as a controlled substance.

This is an IPO of 4.7 million shares at $20 to $23 to trade on the NASDAQ.

Inhibrx (INBX proposed), based in La Jolla, California, is a clinical-stage biotech company with four product candidates in Phase 1 clinical trials. Its most advanced drug candidate, INBRX-109, is being evaluated in patients with chondrosarcoma and mesothelioma, two difficult-to-treat cancers.

This is an IPO of 6 million shares at $16 to $18 to trade on the NASDAQ.

Thursday night pricing for Friday trading:

Nano-X Imaging Ltd. (NNOX proposed), based in Israel, is focused on applying its proprietary medical imaging technology to make diagnostic medicine more accessible and affordable around the world. Its Nanox.ARC digital imaging device and its software platform called Nanox Cloud provide a low-cost in-hospital digital X-ray system.

This is an IPO of 5.9 million shares at $16 to $18 each to trade on the NASDAQ.

(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO profiles on IPOScoop.com’s home page.)

Final Week of August

There’s nothing on the IPO Calendar so far for the week of Aug. 24th. But that white space is normal for this time of year, when the IPO market traditionally takes a break for a couple of weeks before Labor Day. Nevertheless, that situation could change when the SEC’s filing window opens again for business on Monday morning, Aug. 17th.

Stay tuned.

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.

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.