The IPO Buzz: When IPO Bankers Work Overtime

Added bonus: There was yet another Facebook (FB – proposed) story among last week’s filings. Before getting to that, let’s look at the near future.

 

Five cloud-computing companies have gone public so far this year. At Friday’s close, on March 9, four were above their initial offering prices. The average gain for all five was 29.9 percent – far above the 14.7 percent gain for the Nasdaq Composite Index this year.

 

That sets the stage for this week’s IPO calendar, which boasts (yes, you’ve got it) another cloud-computing company.

 

Demandware plans to price 5.5 million shares at $12.50 to $14.50 each on Wednesday evening. The company expects to have about 28 million shares outstanding after the offering. The IPO is expected to start trading Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol “DWRE.”

 

Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, Demandware was formed in 2004. It has about 215 employees. The company initially focused on building its cloud-based architecture and merchandising applications. Now it provides software-as-a-service e-commerce solutions that enable companies to design, implement and manage their own customized e-commerce sites, including websites, mobile applications and other digital storefronts.

 

Rounding out this week’s calendar:

 

Allison Transmission Holdings is an Indianapolis-based manufacturer of fully automatic transmissions for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles. The company believes it is the largest in its industry. Allison was formed in 1915. It has about 2,800 employees.

 

Allison plans to price 21.7 million shares at $22 to $24 each on Wednesday evening. All 21.7 million shares are being offered by affiliates of The Carlyle Group and affiliates of Onex Corporation. Those names, Carlyle and Onex, are familiar to private-equity fans. Allison expects to have about 181.4 million shares outstanding after the offering.

 

The IPO is expected to start trading Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol “ALSN.”

 

M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings is a Lowell, Massachusetts-based provider of high-performance analog semiconductor solutions for use in wireless and wireline applications. M/A-COM was formed in 2008. It has about 667 employees.

 

The company plans to price 5.6 million shares at $17 to $19 each on Wednesday evening. The company expects to have about 45.3 million shares outstanding after the offering.

 

The IPO is expected to start trading Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol “MTSI.”

 

It seems everything Facebook does or does not do attracts more media attention than Lady Gaga or Peyton Manning. Last week, there actually was something to write about.

 

On March 7, 2012, Facebook filed an amendment expanding its underwriting list to 31 bankers, UP from six in its earlier filing.

 

In its original filing on Feb. 1, six names appeared on the front page of the preliminary prospectus.

 

In Facebook’s latest filing, 11 names appeared on the front page of its preliminary prospectus. The other 20 underwriters’ names were buried on page 43 of its prospectus, along with the 11 names from the front page. This is somewhat unusual.

 

In past years, the complete list of underwriters appeared only in the final prospectus. If an underwriter was not a manager or a co-manager, its name was not in the preliminary prospectus.

 

Worth noting: The latest filing included the names of several women- and minority-owned investment bankers.

 

But the big question is: When will the Facebook IPO hit the calendar?

 

Judging from past IPOs, there will be a few more amended filings before Facebook announces the number of shares it plans to offer to the public and the price range of its IPO.

 

You can expect the media to go nuts.

 

Stay tuned.