Writing about IPOs is like being the Maytag repairman. That is, there is
not much to do.
Yep, as expected, this week was particularly dismal for the IPO market. So
far, there has been only one: Rigel Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company.
The company had to reduce is price range from $8-$10 to $7-$8. Also, the
shares were slashed from nine million to five million.
Think of Rigel as an Internet company. That is, profitability is likely to
be far into the future — if ever. Of course, investors cannot tolerate
this. Priced at $7, the stock rose a mere 11 cents on its first day of
trading.
Then again, the IPO market in November will be the worst performance since 1995.
There were only 23 deals completed. In fact, expect few fireworks in
December. Expect no more than 12 deals.
Next week, there are seven deals on the calendar. Of these deals,
Garmin looks like it
may have a reasonable performance.
The company is a leading developer of Global Positional System (GPS)
technologies. GPS has been available for commercial purposes since 1983 and
allows for location-based technologies – such as navigation systems for
cars.
And the market is huge. Allied Business Intelligence projects that the GPS
industry will grow from $4.9 billion in 1999 to $13.9 billion by 2005.
In all, the company has sold three million devices. Sales have grown from
$102 million in 1995 to $233 million in 1999. During this time, net income
grew from $23 million to $64 million.
The lead underwriter is CS First Boston and the price range is $15-$17 (the
company plans to issue 10.5 million shares). The proposed ticker symbol is
GRMH.