As expected, the IPO market was fairly dormant last week. In fact, much of
the action was overseas.
Telekom Austria went public. The offering price was
$15.27. However, on its first day of trading, the stock closed at $13.44.
What’s more, the number of shares was reduced from 140 million to 128.8 million.
The company is a full-service telecom provider in Austria. But of course,
telecom is under extreme pressure. Moreover, Telekom Austria is really a
niche play.
Another overseas telecom company went public last week: Spain’s Telefonica
Moviles . On its first day of trading, the stock was down
3.6 percent to $9. The company is the biggest wireless operator in Spain
and has strong presence in Latin America (there are more than nine million
subscribers in this region).
Although, there was some action in U.S. markets.
iMagicTV went public.
The IPO was priced at $11 and sank to $8.81. It closed at $9. The company
raised about $53 million.
Basically, the company is a developer of sophisticated software technologies
for interactive TV.
With a name like Alliance Fiber Optics Products
, isn’t this supposed to mean a good IPO? Optics is red hot, right?
Not necessarily anymore.
On its first day of trading Alliance Fiber fell about 8 percent. No doubt,
a few months ago, this offering would have been a screamer.
Well, there are legitimate concerns with the company. The product line is
not considered state-of-the-art. Also, the manufacturing capabilities seem
to be limited.