Category Archives: The IPO Buzz

 

A two-month retreat in the Nasdaq Composite Index has rained on Wall Street’s IPO parade. Last week started with four deals on the calendar. In the end, two were withdrawn, one was postponed and the one that made it to market crashed on take-off. This week’s calendar features just two IPOs in a three-day workweek due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday break.

 

When the 2012 U.S. presidential election moved into the history books last week, Wall Street turned its attention to the present – the fiscal cliff, Greece, Spain and, to a lesser degree, “What looks good in the IPO pipeline?”

 

Hurricane Sandy stormed through New Jersey and reportedly knocked out power to 2.6 million customers. IPOScoop.com was one. A week later, it was reported that 445,000 PSE&G customers remained without power. IPOScoop.com is one.

 

October 2012 was an excellent month for IPOs. The calendar turned out 22 deals – up sharply from September, when eight IPOs got out the door. The last time more deals came to market was in May 2011 with 23 IPOs.

 

Bookmark Friday, Oct. 26. That’s when this week’s IPO calendar swings into action with two limited partnerships and a company with household-name products. The buzz is that investors are lining up to get in these deals.

 

The IPO market brought home a report card last week that was something to brag about. But this week, it’s so quiet that it looks like school is closed.

 

The Street is on track for its busiest IPO week in more than a year. This week’s calendar lists 11 deals looking to raise $3.5 billion. Two are blockbusters known as billion-dollar babies – each expects to raise $1 billion. Another deal is a cloud-based application provider that IPO experts think could soar into orbit.

 

October’s IPO calendar is building from last month’s traffic. September 2012 generated eight IPOs, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. By Friday’s close, Sept. 28, the calendar already had 15 IPOs lined up for this month. It might be worth noting that the August, September and October 2011 new-issues calendars produced only seven offerings.

There are just a few names on this week’s IPO calendar, but there are magical words among them. One offering is a cloud computer company, another a high-yielding limited partnership in the energy sector and the other is a foreign bank whose American Depositary Shares (ADS) represent stock already traded on its own national stock exchange.

 

What’s a bull market without an IPO calendar? Happy to report, we have both. The major U.S. stock market indexes closed on Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, at levels that they haven’t seen in years. And this week’s calendar boasts seven deals expecting to raise about $1.3 billion.