28.03.2024

Big week for IPOs falls flat

The week started out with a bang, with the shares of engineering and cloud computing software company Altair Engineering Inc.’s ALTR, +11.26%  IPO pricing at $13 a share, at the top of the expected range of $11-to-$13 a share. The stock opened at $17 at 10:36 a.m. ET, or 31% above its IPO price. It ran up to an intraday high of $18.98 on its first day, then rallied further to close at $19.37 Friday.

What was hyped as the biggest week for initial public offerings in months started out hot, then fell flat, as a number of stocks made their debut below their IPO prices.

No less than eight companies went public in the week ending Nov. 3, the most since the week ending June 30, according to market intelligence firm Ipreo. The total proceeds raised, about $2.4 billion, was also the most since June.

The less-than-stellar IPO performance comes during a week that the both the Renaissance IPO IPO, +0.57% and the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.31%  hit record highs. That may not bode well for next week, which could feature as many as 10 IPOs that raise a total of about $2 billion, Ipreo said.

Don’t miss: IPO market heats up as stocks of first of 8 deals this week rocket in their debut.

The same day, shares of Argentine cement and concrete maker Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina LOMA, -0.05%  made its debut at $21.65 at 10:57 a.m. That was 14% above the IPO price of $19 a share, which was also at the top of the expected range, of $15 to $19. Since then, it has traded in a range of $21 to $22.15, and closed at $21.50 on Friday.

But then things went south.

Toy and consumer products company Funko Inc. FNKO, -0.99%  was by far the worst performer of the week. The company’s IPO not only priced at $12, below its expected range of $14 to $16, but the offering also dropped its offering to 10.42 million Class A shares from 11.61 million. So the company raised $125 million from the IPO, before options granted to underwriters, compared with previous expectations that it could raise up to $185.7 million.

The opening was delayed till 11:35 a.m., at $8, or 33% below its offering price. The stock fell even further to close Thursday at $7.07. It fell 1.0% on Friday.

“We can’t get too caught up on what happens on Day 1”, said Chief Executive Brian Mariotti, in a phone interview with MarketWatch. “We’re going to be here for a long time.”

Before Funko, the first trade of Spero Therapeutics Inc.’s stock SPRO, +0.52%  was at 10:03 a.m. Thursday at $13.25. That was 5.4% below the IPO price of $14 a share, which was at the bottom of the expected range of $14 to $16. Shares of the developer of treatments of resistant bacterial infections kept falling, to end the first day 18% below its IPO price at $11.50.

The stock rose 0.5% on Friday.

Water treatment company Evoqua Water Technologies Corp.’s stock AQUA, -2.68%  then opened at $19 at 10:12 a.m., or 5.6% above the IPO price of $18 a share, which was price in the middle of the expected range of $17 to $19. It rose a further 9.9% to close at $20.88 on Thursday, but then pulled back 2.7% on Friday.

Biopharmaceutical company Allena Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s stock ALNA, -1.90%  was next, opening at $12 at 11 a.m. That was 14% below the IPO price of $14, which priced at the bottom of the expected range of $14 to $16. It tumbled even further, closing down 29% below its IPO price at $10, then fell 1.9% on Friday.

On Friday, shares of both companies going public rose, but only after their IPOs priced below expectations.

Shares of Aquantia Corp. AQ, +5.67% a maker of high-speed communications integrated circuits for Ethernet connections, opened at 10:29 a.m. at $9.40, or 4.4% above the IPO price of $9. That price was below the expected pricing range of $10 to $12. The stock closed up 5.7% at $9.51.

And chip equipment maker ACM Research Inc.’s IPO ACMR, +8.04%  priced at $5.60, well below the expected range of $7.50 to $9.50. So although the stock closed up 8.0% at $6.05 Friday, it was still trading below the expected range, and has fallen sharply from its 11:11 a.m. opening price of $8.17.

For next week, technology IPOs could include China-based Sogou Inc. SOGO, +0.00%  and Bandwidth Inc. BAND, +0.00% according to Ipreo; health care IPOs could include Germany’s Fireman B.V. IFRX, +0.00%  and Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc. APLS, +0.00% ; IPOs in the financial sector could include Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. MCB, +0.00%  and China’s PPDAI Group Inc. PPDF, +0.00% ; within energy, Energy Hunter Resources Inc. EHR, +0.00%  could go public; China-based Four Season Education (Cayman) Inc. could go public in the consumer services sector; and among real-estate investment trust Workspace Property Trust Inc. WSPT, +0.00%  could come to market.

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