The IPO Buzz: Friday’s IPO Quintet

Three of the five Friday IPOs are reportedly on everybody’s “most wanted” list. Two are Internet services companies. The other one is a specialty retailer whose laptop bags and luggage are popular with the “platinum miles” set.

Infoblox plans to price 7.5 million shares at $12 to $14 each on Thursday evening. The IPO is expected to start trading on Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol “BLOX.” The joint-lead managers are Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Sachs and UBS Securities.

 

Based in Santa Clara, California, Infoblox provides appliance-based solutions for dynamic networks and next-generation data centers to help businesses get the most out of cloud computing. Dynamic networks enable on-demand connection and configuration of devices and applications; they also let users manage networks efficiently and get full value from virtualization and cloud computing.

 

For example, the Infoblox prospectus states: “The Infoblox solution provides end customers with the power to access 14 billion Google pages per second and connect 2.8 million devices per second.”

 

The company’s appliances have been sold to more than 5,400 end customers, including Adobe, Barclays, Best Buy, Boeing, Caterpillar, the Federal Aviation Administration, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Reuters, the Royal Bank of Canada, Staples, U.S. Customs and others. Infoblox was formed in 1999. It has about 494 employees.

 

Infoblox plans to offer about 5.7 million shares and selling shareholders plan to offer another 1.8 million shares. The company expects to have about 44 million shares outstanding after the offering.

 

Among the major risk factors cited in the Infoblox are its history of losses and competition from its deep-pocketed rivals, including Hewlett-Packard Co. and International Business Machines Corp.    

Splunk plans to price 13.5 million shares at $8 to $10 each on Thursday evening. The IPO is expected to start trading on Friday morning on the NASDAQ Global Market under the proposed symbol “SPLK.” The joint-lead managers are Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and BofA Merrill Lynch.

 

Based in San Francisco, Splunk got its name from the pastime of “spelunking” or exploring caves. Splunk provides software platforms that let users collect and index data on a massive scale as well as to quickly search, correlate, analyze, monitor and report on this data.

 

Splunk has more than 3,700 customers in 75 countries. It has partnerships with companies such as Cisco, F5 Networks, Blue Coat, Sendmail, Systex and VMware. Splunk was formed in 2003. It has about 463 employees.

 

Splunk plans to offer about 12.5 million shares and selling shareholders plan to offer another 1 million shares. The company expects to have about 92.6 million shares outstanding after the offering.

 

The major risk factors, according to Splunk’s prospectus, include the company’s history of losses and competition from its deep-pocketed rivals, including H-P, IBM, Intel, Google and Microsoft, as well as the IT departments of its customers.

 

Infoblox’s and Splunk’s competitors are companies in the Dow Jones Internet Services Index. The index has been an outperformer this year. On Friday, April 13, the Internet services index was up 11.6 percent for the year versus an 8.96 percent gain by the S&P 500 Index.  

Tumi Holdings plans to price 18.8 million shares at $15 to $17 each on Thursday evening. The IPO is expected to start trading Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol “TUMI.” The joint-lead managers are Goldman, Sachs, Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan.

 

Based in South Plainfield, New Jersey, Tumi offers luxury travel and business products as well as accessories. Its travel products – popular with Wall Street’s denizens and road warriors from other sectors – include wheeled and soft carry-on luggage, laptop cases, garment bags, totes, duffels, wheeled packing cases and travel kits. Its business products include business cases, day bags and totes, while its accessories include small leather goods, travel electronics and other accessories.

 

The company sells its products in more than 65 countries from about 1,600 points of distribution, including retail, wholesale and e-commerce. Tumi was formed in 1975. It has about 963 employees.

 

Tumi plans to offer about 17.6 million shares and selling shareholders plan to offer another 1.2 million shares. The company expects to have about 67.9 million shares outstanding after the offering.

 

Risk factors, according to the prospectus, include the impact of the global economy on consumer spending and travel.

Tumi Holdings’ competitors are companies in the Dow Jones U.S. Specialty Retailers Index. The index has been an outperformer this year. On Friday, April 13, the specialty retailer index was up 15.8 percent for the year versus an 8.96 percent gain by the S&P 500 Index.

 

The week’s IPO calendar rounds out with two other new faces from the energy sector:

 

Midstates Petroleum (MPO – proposed) is an independent exploration and production oil company that has never declared and paid dividends, and does not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.

 

And SandRidge Mississippian Trust II (SDR – proposed) is a royalty trust of SandRidge Energy (SD) and expects to make quarterly “target distributions” amounting to $1.88 per unit for 2012 with a projected yield of 9.4 percent.

 

Stay tuned.