This week is shaping up to be the most active week in initial public offerings since May 2008 in the latest sign that the end of the IPO drought is near.
Two Chinese companies -- Chemspec International Ltd. (NYSE:CPC), a maker of chemicals, and Duoyuan Global Water Inc. (NYSE:DWG), a supplier of water treatment equipment -- made successful debuts on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning.
Moments after Chemspec chairman and CEO Jianhua Yang rang the opening bell, his company's stock opened at $9.45, just above its $9 pricing Tuesday night. The company's IPO raised $73 million with underwriters led by Credit Suisse Group (NYSE:CS) and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C).
Later in the morning, Duoyuan Global Water began trading on the NYSE after raising $88 million, underwritten by Piper Jaffray Cos. DGW priced at $16, above its $13 to $15 range, and was trading at $23 by late morning. (The Deal Pipeline subscribers may read more about the debuts of Chemspec and Duoyuan here.)
Thursday may prove equally busy. Medidata Solutions Inc., which will trade on the Nasdaq exchange, and Invesco Mortgage Capital Inc., which will trade on the NYSE, are expected to price Wednesday and may debut Thursday.
As The Deal's George White pointed out recently, the Medidata IPO could mark another home run for venture capital firm Insight Venture Partners, which reaped roughly 4.5 times its $50 million investment in network management software developer SolarWinds Inc. (NYSE:SWI) when the company went public in May. (The Deal Pipeline subscribers can read more about SolarWind's IPO here.)
The activity this week has been a long time coming. There were no VC-backed IPOs in the fourth quarter of last year or the first quarter of this year, although the second quarter has been more promising, with successful offerings from VC-backed Bridgepoint Education Inc. (NYSE:BPI) in April as well as OpenTable Inc. (NASDAQ:OPEN) and SolarWinds in May.
Next week, another venture-backed company is expected to debut. LogMeIn Inc. recently set the terms for a $100 million IPO in a regulatory filing. LogMeIn expects to offer 6.7 million shares at a price range of $14 to $16. The S-1 filing lists Prism Venture Partners (23.79%), Polaris Venture Partners (20.99%), Technologieholding Central and Eastern European Funds (15.83%), Integral Capital Partners (8.91%) and Intel Capital (5.43%) as the largest stakeholders. - Mary Kathleen Flynn
