The IPO Buzz: Temperature Rising

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the IPO market, its traffic and its numbers -– the U.S. IPO market, that is.

 

Note: Recently the financial media has been reporting that worldwide IPOs have been raising hundred of billions of dollars. Because of American securities rules, there might be a possibility that many of these oversea investment opportunities may be closed to U.S. investors. Of course, the major reasons for this are classic: no record of these offerings being registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and no record of them being “blue skied” with various state securities agencies. The short version is: “unregistered securities.”

Over the last three decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s), the IPO calendar produced an average of 378 deals per year, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s filings.

 

In the last decade (2000s or “the Oughts”), the IPO calendar produced an average of 181 deals per year.

 

The record highest back-to-back years came in 1996 and 1997 with a total of 1,490 IPOs (pre-Internet bubble).

 

The record lowest back-to-back years came in 2008 and 2009 with a total of just 112 IPOs.

 

In 2009 through August, the IPO calendar produced 21 deals.

 

You can see the air coming out of the bag. Then things changed.

 

In 2010 through August, the IPO calendar produced 92 deals.

 

And the filings are building.

 

In 2009 through August, 42 companies had filed to go public.

 

Fast forward a year. In 2010 through August, 183 companies had filed to go public.

 

A recent article reported that the VCs have about 2,400 companies waiting in the wings to go public.

 

Investors are free to believe what they wish, but the IPO market has been attracting a lot of ink lately from the financial media.

 

Maybe they are on to something?