April got off to a roaring start with the first moonshot of the year. Nine micro-cap names graced the IPO Calendar as this short holiday week got under way. The U.S. stock market will be closed on Friday (April 7, 2023) for Good Friday, which is the start of the three-day Easter weekend. Passover will begin at sundown on Wednesday (April 5, 2023). So IPO bankers are racing the holiday countdown clock. (Editor’s Note: This column, published Tuesday morning, was updated with news on IPO debuts and pricing.)
Two small-cap initial public offerings – Multi Ways Holdings (MWG) of moonshot fame and Ispire Technology (ISPR) from the cannabis vaping hardware segment – made it out the door on Monday. Ispire Technology’s stock shot up 21.9 percent to $8.53 – up $1.53 from its $7.00 IPO price – in its opening trade on NASDAQ today (Tuesday, April 4, 2023).
Singapore-based Multi Ways Holdings Ltd. (MWG) soared 254.8 percent on Monday (April 3, 2023) to close at $8.87 in its NYSE-American Exchange debut. Multi Ways Holdings’ IPO scored the first moonshot of 2023. A moonshot occurs when an IPO gains 100 percent or more from its IPO price in its first day of trading.
Multi Ways Holdings Ltd. is the Cayman Islands parent of a profitable Singapore company that sells and rents new and used heavy construction equipment. The IPO was upsized at pricing to 7.24 million shares – up from 6.4 million in the prospectus – and priced at $2.50 – the mid-point of its $2.00-to-$3.00 price range to raise $18.1 million. Spartan Capital Securities served as the sole book-runner.
Ispire Technology Inc., a Los Angeles-based cannabis vaping products and e-cigarette company, priced its downsized IPO on Monday night (April 3, 2023) at $7.00 – the mid-point of its $7.00-to-$9.00 price range – to raise $18.9 million. At pricing, Ispire Technology’s IPO was trimmed to 2.7 million shares from 3.0 million shares in the prospectus. The IPO’s size was cut in half in March. US Tiger Securities led the book-runners’ team, which included TFI Securities and Prime Number Capital.
Some of the IPO proceeds will be used to build factories in Vietnam and California, Ispire Technology says in the prospectus. The company notes that “at present” its products are “manufactured and supplied by Shenzhen Yi Jia Technology Co., Limited, a Chinese company (“Shenzhen Yi Jia”), which is 95 percent owned by our chief executive officer and controlling stockholder, Tuanfang Liu.”
For Ispire Technology, it was a long and winding road to go public. The company, formerly known as Aspire Global Inc., had planned to go public in 2021 by raising $120 million at a market cap of $1.32 billion. Those IPO plans were withdrawn.
For the year ended Dec. 31, 2022, Ispire Technology booked a net loss of $3.55 million on revenue of $99.7 million.
Millennium Group International Holdings Ltd. (MGIH), a Chinese paper packaging products company, priced its micro-cap IPO in sync with the terms in its prospectus – 1.25 million shares at $4.00 each to raise $5.0 million – the company announced. Millennium’s stock opened flat – at $4.00 – today (Tuesday, April 4, 2023) on the NASDAQ.
Looking Ahead
Four more micro-cap IPOs are in the wings with potential pricing dates this week. The timing of one deal – Global Mofy Metaverse (GMM proposed) – appears to be fluid at this point. Another small-cap IPO – Golden Heaven Group (GDHG proposed) – moved to next week’s calendar.
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.