Hello, 2014!

 

The Tuesday entry was GlycoMimetics (GLYC), a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based clinical stage biotechnology company that is focusing on the discovery and development of novel drugs to treat diseases ranging from sickle-cell anemia to cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer. The deal had the magic words for a bio-IPO: Its offering price was CUT to a single digit – $8 per share, DOWN from $14 to $16 – and it has a COLLABORATION agreement (with Pfizer (PFE) and it has COLLABORATION REVENUES. That did it. Its stock opened at $10.40 on Friday morning. GlycoMimetics closed on Friday at $9.01.

 

With GlycoMimetics’ debut, the 2014 IPO year was off and running. That left seven deals on the new year’s IPO calendar – with five set for this week alone and bankers expecting to raise $2.1 billion.

 

This year was the earliest start for the IPO market in over 10 years, according to the SEC filings. On Jan. 7, 2004, K-Sea Transportation priced 3.6 million common units at $23.50 each. It closed its opening day at $26.50 and was acquired on March 3, 2011, by Kirby Corporation (KEX). Shareholders had a choice of accepting $8.15 per share in cash or $4.075 in cash plus 0.0734 share of Kirby.

 

By the time 2004 was completed, 239 IPOs had come to market.

 

Now let’s fast forward a decade to the present.

 

Ten companies filed plans to go public last week, which was the first full week of 2014. They are looking to raise about $750 million. Another 11 companies filed updated amendments. They are looking to raise about $4.7 billion. And three companies withdrew plans to go public. (Note: Two of the withdrawals had previously been postponed “due to market conditions.” They were: LegalZoom.com postponed in August 2012 and GCT Semiconductor postponed in March 2012.)

 

 

The energy sector is “in play” with three names on the calendar. One deal is said to be drawing some interest from investors. It is a billion-dollar offering by EP Partners (EPE – proposed).

 

EP Partners is a Houston-based independent exploration and production company. EP Partners is engaged in the acquisition and development of unconventional onshore oil (shale oil) and natural gas properties in the United States. The company’s drilling inventories are located in four core areas of the Eagle Ford Shale (South Texas), the Wolfcamp Shale (Permian Basin in West Texas), the Uinta Basin (Utah) and the Haynesville Shale (North Louisiana). The company has over 5,200 drilling locations of which about 96 percent are oil wells. EP Partners reports it has, at current activity levels, about 24 years of drilling inventory. EP Partners, a holding company formed in 2013, has about 4,500 employees.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 40 million shares of EP Partners at $23 to $27 each to raise about $1 billion. The IPO is expected to be priced Thursday evening and trade Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The joint-lead managers are: Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities, UBS Investment Bank, BMO Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities. The co-managers are: Evercore, Tudor Pickering Holt, Barclays, Jefferies, BofA Merrill Lynch, BBVA, Nomura, Scotiabank/Howard Weil, SOCIETE GENERALE, TD Securities, Capital One Securities, CIBC, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, ING, Mizuho, SMBC Nikko, Stephens, Lebenthal Capital Markets and Topeka Capital Markets.

 

Rounding out the rest of this week’s energy deals are: Cypress Energy Partners, L.P. (CELP  – proposed) and RSP Permian (RSPP – proposed).

 

Cypress Energy is a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based limited partnership that provides saltwater disposal and other water and environmental services to U.S. onshore oil and natural gas producers and trucking companies. Cypress was formed in 2011. The company plans to offer 3.75 million common units at $19 to $21 each to raise $75 million. The deal is expected to be priced Wednesday evening to trade Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The joint-lead managers are: Raymond James, Baird, Stifel and BMO Capital Markets. The co-managers are: Janney Montgomery Scott and Wunderlich Securities.

 

(Note: Cypress Energy intends to make a minimum quarterly distribution of $0.3875 per unit ($1.55 on an annualized basis) to yield 7.75 percent at the mid-point of its pricing range.

 

RSP Permian is a Dallas-based independent oil and natural gas company. RSP is focused on the acquisition, exploration, development and production of unconventional oil and associated liquids-rich natural gas reserves in the Permian Basin of West Texas. Since the company’s inception in 2010, it has participated in the drilling of over 300 vertical Wolfberry wells and served as the operator of over 180 of those wells and, in late 2012, shifted its primary focus to drilling horizontal wells. RSP, formed in 2010, has about 35 employees. The company plans to offer 20 million shares at $19 to $21 each to raise $400 million. The company plans to sell 9.2 million shares and selling shareholders plan to sell 10.8 million shares. The deal is expected to be priced Thursday evening to trade Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The joint-lead managers are: Barclays, J.P. Morgan, Tudor Pickering Holt, Raymond James, RBC Capital Markets and UBS Investment Bank. The co-manager is: Jefferies.

 

 

CHC Group Ltd.(HELI – proposed) is a Cayman Islands-based commercial operator of helicopters with operations based on six continents. The company said that it is one of only two global commercial helicopter service providers to the offshore oil and gas industry. CHC Group believes is it’s the world’s largest in its industrial sector. Formed in 1987, CHC Group has about 4,500 employees. The company plans to offer 29.4 million shares at $16 to $18 each to raise $500 million. The deal is expected to be priced Thursday evening to trade Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. The joint-lead managers are: J.P. Morgan, Barclays and UBS Investment Bank. The co-managers are: HSBC, RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo Securities, BNP PARIBAS, Standard Bank, Cormark Securities (USA), Cowen, Raymond James, Simmons and Tudor, Pickering, Holt.

 

Looking into next week, the IPO calendar has two names. They are expected to raise about $1.58 billion. But those numbers could grow by the time that Monday, Jan. 13, rolls around.

 

 

Stay tuned.

 

 

Since the middle of December, two dozen companies have filed to go public.

 

Starting in mid-August 2013, when the IPO calendar traditionally closes down, the SEC filings picked up steam. During the last three weeks of August, 22 IPOs were filed, or an average of 7.3 filings per week. That was significantly higher than 4.4 filings per week from January through mid-August.

 

And the IPO calendar responded.

 

September through December (a four-month period): 91 IPOs were priced with eye-popping aftermarket results. Their opening-day scorecard: 66 winners, 19 losers and six unchanged. The average opening-day gain for all 91 IPOs was 24.1 percent.

 

January through August (an eight-month period): 127 IPOs were priced with respectable aftermarket results. Their opening-day scorecard: 83 winners, 36 losers and eight unchanged. The average opening-day gain for all 127 IPOs was 15.1 percent.

 

(Note: The above numbers exclude unit offerings consisting of common stock and warrants, closed-end investment companies, bank conversions and American Depositary Shares being offered for the first time in the U.S. capital markets that represent shares already traded on their own stock exchange.)

 

Here’s what has been happening at the SEC filing window since mid-December, another traditional time when the IPO calendar closes down: 24 IPOs were filed.   

 

The heaviest filings came from the health-care sector – 11 from the biopharmaceutical industry. It is worth noting: The last three bio-IPOs that were priced closed on Friday, Jan. 3, 2014, UP an average 56.8 percent from their initial offering prices. But don’t get carried away.

 

Now for the downside: Two of those three IPOs were reduced in size to meet limited investor demand and got a “dead cat bounce.” And another two bio-IPOs that appeared on the calendar were postponed due to market conditions.

 

There has been a lot of talk in the financial press about social media companies going public. At last count, about 30 companies have been identified as potential IPOs in 2014 – and this year’s IPO hunting season hasn’t even started.

 

One example is Snapchat, a provider of photo messaging applications enabling users to send photos, videos, text and drawings that vanish within seconds. On Nov. 14, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported Snapchat rejected a $3 billion cash offer from Facebook (FB).

 

Chinese IPOs are back in play. Eight Chinese IPOs were priced in the U.S. capital markets during 2013. Their scorecard on Dec. 31, 2013: Seven winners, one loser and the average aftermarket gain for all eight was 90.7 percent. That type of honey draws a lot of interest. To date, no filings have appeared at the SEC filing window, but there’s talk – lots of talk.

 

Probably the loudest buzz in today’s IPO market is the pending Alibaba offering. Alibaba is China’s leading e-commerce company. The talk is that the company could raise multibillions of dollars in the IPO market. One question floating around is: Which market? Some say China. Some say the United States. Others think London could be the place.

 

And informed sources report that the New York Stock Exchange has 10 Chinese companies approved for trading on the Big Board sometime during 2014, yet there are no SEC filings.

 

In conclusion: As we have seen many times in today’s IPO market, the JOBS Act of 2012 has simplified and accelerated the IPO process. In a nutshell, a company submits a confidential filing to the SEC without public disclosure. Once the paperwork is completed, market testing is done, other pieces fall into place, and stock market conditions are favorable, then the S-1 filing is posted on the SEC’s website. Once that happens, a company’s IPO can be on the calendar in a few weeks. In some cases, it has all come together in just a few days.

 

Monday, Jan. 6, starts the watch of the SEC’s filing window and the wait for the 2014 IPO calendar to shape up.  

 

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

The calendar produced 233 IPOs that raised $45.1 billion, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. (Note: These numbers excluded unit offerings consisting of common stock and warrants, closed-end investment companies, best effort offerings and foreign companies offering American Depositary Shares representing stock already being traded on their own national stock exchanges.)

 

The calendar produced 218 IPOs that raised $52.7 billion. That made this year’s traffic well below – yes, well below – the 1980-2013 annual average. Over the last 34 years, 12,016 IPOs were priced. That makes 353 IPOs an “average” year. This year’s traffic was 38.2 percent BELOW average.

 

Conclusion: No large traffic. No IPO bubble in 2013.

 

Next: The opening-day performance for all 218 IPOs this year was 149 winners, 55 losers, 14 unchanged, and the average gain was 18.86 percent.

 

Consider this: In 1999, the average opening-day gain was 78.1 percent for 531 IPOs that came to market. In 2000, the average opening-day gain was 69 percent for 422 IPOs that came to market.

 

Conclusion: No huge opening-day gains. No IPO bubble in 2013.

 

Today’s IPO aftermarket has not run wild in outperforming the underlying U.S. stock market. On Dec. 27, 2013, the IPO scorecard showed 172 winners, 46 losers, and the average gain for all 218 IPOs was 40.3 percent. That was slightly better than the NASDAQ Composite Index. It was up 37.8 percent year-to-date.

Conclusion: No runaway aftermarket. No IPO bubble in 2013.

 

Now on to the future: In past years, you could expect the IPO market to start coming to life in mid-January. But the JOBs Act has changed things. The calendar could come to life sooner rather than later.

 

The staff of IPOScoop.com would like to wish everybody “Happy New Year!”

 

Stay tuned. 

 

The mid-December closing of the 2013 IPO market is in keeping with years past, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Since 2000, the earliest year-end close for the IPO calendar came on Nov. 19, 2008. But 2008 was not a happy time on Wall Street. The latest year-end close came on Dec. 21 – in 2010, 2006 and 2005.  

 

This week’s calendar brings us AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC – proposed) and Cambridge Capital Acquisition (CAMBU – proposed). The first seems to have taken up permanent residency in the IPO pipeline. The other is a “blank check” unit offering.

 

It’s been a long, long way to market for AMC. Consider:

 

Underwriters plan to offer 18.4 million shares of Class A common stock at $18 to $20 each to raise about $349.6 million. The IPO is expected to be priced on Tuesday evening and trade on Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “AMC.” The joint-lead managers are Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Credit Suisse. The co-managers are B. Riley, Barrington Research, FBR, HSBC, LOYAL3 Securities, Piper Jaffray, Stifel and Wedbush Securities.

 

There is a wrinkle in this offering. AMC will give its loyal customers – its AMC Stub Members – a chance to buy into its IPO at its offering price through LOYAL3 Securities.

 

Offering IPOs to customers is nothing new.

 

One of the first was the November 1996 Boston Beer (SAM) IPO. Each six-pack included a coupon for the consumer to subscribe to its IPO. It was reported that 990,000 shares were directly sold to beer buyers at $15 each and the offering was fully subscribed. The shares closed on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013, at $224, UP a lot from its initial offering price of 17 years ago.

 

This wraps up the last IPO calendar of 2013.

 

The IPO Buzz is taking next week off. It will be back on Dec. 30, 2013.

 

The staff of IPOScoop.com would like to wish everybody “Happy Holidays.”

 

 

Stay tuned.

 

 

The December IPO calendar can be busy or not, depending upon market conditions. Reaching back to 1970, the busiest December was 1983; that calendar produced 99 IPOs, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s filings. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 20.3 percent in 1983. In contrast, there have been four times since 1970 when no IPOs were priced in December. The last time that happened was in 2008, and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 40.5 percent that year.

 

However, this December looks like it will go out with a bit of a pop – 10 IPOs on this week’s calendar, two for next week, and one deal has already been priced. Collectively, their dollar volume could be over $5 billon. December 2012 produced nine IPOs that raised $1.7 billion, and December 2011 produced 11 IPOs that raised $3.5 billion. This brings us to this week.

 

Five IPOs are drawing interest from the IPO handicappers: ARAMARK Holdings (ARMK – proposed), Autohome (ATHM – proposed), Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT – proposed), Nimble Storage (NMBL – proposed) and Valero Energy Partners LP (VLP – proposed). Let’s take a closer look at each.

 

ARAMARK Holdings is a Philadelphia-based global provider of food, facilities and uniform services to education, healthcare, business and industry, and to sports, leisure and corrections clients. ARAMARK was a publicly traded company from 1960 to 1984 and from 2001 to 2007. Founded in 1959, the company has about 272,000 employees.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 36.25 million shares of ARAMARK at $20 to $23 each to raise about $779.4 million. ARAMARK plans to sell 28 million shares and selling shareholders plan to sell 8.25 million shares in this offering. The IPO is expected to be priced on Wednesday evening and to trade on Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “ARMK.” The joint-lead managers are Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. The co-managers are Barclays, BofA Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo Securities, Baird, PNC Capital Markets, Rabo Securities, Ramirez, Santander, SMBC Nikko and The Williams Capital Group.

 

(Note: Among the selling shareholders are: GS Capital Partners, CCPM Capital Partners, J.P. Morgan Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Warburg Pincus LLC.)

 

Autohome is a Beijing-based online destination for automobile consumers in China. The company operates two websites, autohome.com.cn and che168.com. Autohome delivers comprehensive, independent and interactive content to automobile buyers and owners. The company believes it is ranked first among China’s automotive websites and automotive channels of Internet portals. Founded in 2008, the company has about 1,092 employees.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 7.8 million American Depositary Shares of Autohome at $12 to $14 each to raise $101.7 million. The IPO is expected to be priced on Tuesday evening and trade on Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “ATHM.” The joint-lead managers are Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman Sachs (Asia). The co-managers are Oppenheimer and Piper Jaffray.

 

Hilton Worldwide Holdings, based in McLean, Virginia, believes it is one of the largest and fastest-growing hospitality companies in the world. The company operates about 4,041 hotels, resorts and timeshare properties comprising 665,667 rooms in 90 countries and territories. The company has a portfolio of 10 world-class brands, including Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand, Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, Conrad Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by Hilton and Embassy Suites Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites by Hilton and Home2 Suites by Hilton, Hilton Grand Vacations, the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the London Hilton on Park Lane. Founded in 1919, the company has about 151,000 employees.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 112.8 million shares of Hilton Worldwide at $18 to $21 each to raise about $2.2 billion. The company plans to sell 64.1 million shares and selling shareholders plan to sell 48.7 million shares in this offering. The IPO is expected to be priced on Thursday evening and trade on Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “HLT.” The joint-lead managers are Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley The co-managers are Blackstone Capital Markets, Macquarie Capital, Barclays, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, HSBC, RBS, Baird, Credit Agricole, Nomura, Raymond James, RBC Capital Markets, UBS Investment Bank, CastleOak, Drexel Hamilton, Telsey and Ramirez.

 

(Note: The sole selling shareholder is Hilton Global Holdings. The Blackstone Group and its affiliates will not be selling any of its 750 million shares in the offering.)

 

Nimble Storage is a San Jose, California-based provider of information technology, hardware and software products for data storage. It offers an array of data storage that uses the iSCSI protocol and includes data-backup features. At the core of its innovative platform is its Cache-Accelerated Sequential Layout file system software (called CASL technology) and its cloud-based storage management and support service (called InfoSight). Founded in 2007, the company has about 528 employees.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 8 million shares of Nimble Storage at $16 to $18 each to raise $136 million. The IPO is expected to be priced on Thursday evening and trade on Friday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “NMBL.” The joint-lead managers are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The co-managers are Pacific Crest Securities, William Blair, Stifel, Oppenheimer and Needham.

 

Valero Energy Partners LP is a San Antonio-based fee-based, growth-oriented, traditional master limited partnership recently formed by Valero. The limited partnership is to own, operate, develop and acquire crude oil and refined petroleum products pipelines, terminals and other transportation and logistics assets. It will serve as Valero’s primary vehicle to expand the transportation and logistics assets supporting its business. Because the limited partnership does not take ownership of or receive any payments based on the value of the crude oil or refined petroleum products it handles and does not engage in the trading of any commodities, Valero Energy partners has no direct exposure to commodity price fluctuations.

 

Underwriters plan to offer 15 million common units representing the limited partnership interest of Valero Energy Partners at $19 to $21 each to raise $300 million. The IPO is expected to be priced on Tuesday evening and trade on Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the proposed symbol of “VLP.” The joint-lead managers are J.P. Morgan and Barclays. The co-managers are Citigroup, RBC Capital Markets, Wells Fargo Securities, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Credit Agricole CIB, Credit Suisse, Jefferies, Mizuho Securities, RBS and Scotiabank Howard Weil.

 

(Note: The limited partnership plans to make a minimum quarterly distribution of $0.2125 per unit for each whole quarter, or $0.85 per unit on an annualized basis to yield 4.25 percent at the mid-point of its price range.)

 

 

Next week is light, with just two deals. Yes, Virginia, the week of Dec. 16 is expected to wrap up the IPO year for 2013.

 

Stay tuned.