The 2011 IPO Market Wasn't So Bad After All

2012-01-17T21:02:43Z

There may be only one IPO set for this week, according to data from Renaissance Capital, but the year looks to be a positive one, according to NYSE. Several companies in the tech, healthcare and energy sectors are likely to go public before the end of January. Notes NYSE: We don’t need a market that’s advancing every day to make the IPO calendar work. We simply need relative calm in the markets’. The VIX is now at 21 percent, indicating that volatility is headed in the right direction.

Despite all the bad news about the 2011 IPO market, there were some bright spots. Here’s the silver lining:

1. Just over half of IPOs priced inside their ranges, with 21 percent above and 27 percent below. The proportion pricing above was better than 2010.

2. Most of the US IPOs that priced in 2011 did so in the first half of the year, when the IPO market was wide open. So, they were already public when US sovereign debt was downgraded and the European credit crisis hit. This impact on performance can’t be dismissed easily.

3. Buyers had to be selective in the second half of the year, given market conditions. Companies that priced well, according to NYSE, include Bankrate (‘and it wasn’t even the #1 PE-backed company’) which was up 43 percent, GNC Holdings (the top private equity-backed company) up 81 percent and Michael Kors up 30 percent.

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