IPO Outlook: Supply Of New Issues Overwhelming Demand
By RAYMOND HENNESSEY DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK -- The IPO market's all-you-can-eat buffet has led to a pretty bad case of indigestion.....
Three of the five IPOs that traded Friday settled for fairly lackluster offering prices. Only one, Internet-exchange company Equinix Inc. (EQIX), which sold 20 million shares through Goldman Sachs Group Inc., priced at the high end of its range of $10 to $12 a share. Two others, urology-surgical tools maker American Medical Systems Holdings Inc. (AMMD) and Israeli genomics-research company Compugen Ltd. (CGEN), priced at the bottom of estimates, while the fourth, Telik Inc. (TELK), another genomics-research company, priced a full $2 below price talk of $9 to $11 a share.
All four saw rather muted trading. The only strong IPO performance Friday was from German biotechnology-software developer Lion Bioscience AG (LEON). Lion, which simultaneously listed on the Neuer Market in Germany, sold 4.6 million American Depositary Shares through lead underwriter Morgan Stanley Dean Witter......
There has been one small bright spot in the current IPO market. Though the best performers remain mostly in hot sectors like fiber optics and wireless communications, there has been a broadening out to other areas....
And biotechnology, which failed in a comeback attempt earlier this year, is now a solid component of the calendar. Over the past four weeks, 26 biotechnology-related IPOs have come to market, making it the busiest period for new issues in the sector since 1991, according to Thomson Financial Securities Data.
today's WSJI
Jim |
