initial public offerings (IPOs) trading on American exchanges

Friday, December 30, 2011

Solazyme (SZYM) looks good today

  • Solazyme officially changed its name to TerraVia Holdings Inc. in March 2016 with a redefined focus on food, nutrition, and personal care. As part of the change, the company stated that its previous fuel and industrial oil products and workings would operate under Solazyme Industrials.
  • On August 2, 2017, TerraVia filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. The company announced a "stalking horse" offer from Corbion, N.V., a Netherlands food and biochemical company.  The offer values TerraVia's assets at $20 million.  By comparison, Solazyme's IPO raised over $197 million.

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Renren (RENN) looks good today

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

China Eclipses US as Top IPO Venue


China has again outshone the U.S. as the top venue for initial public offerings despite steep share price falls on the mainland and Hong Kong stock markets, highlighting the shift in global financial activity from west to east.

Companies raised $73 billion from IPOs in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong this year, according to Dealogic — almost double the amount of money raised on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq combined.

Hong Kong retained its crown as the top bourse for the third year in a row, with $30.9 billion raised this year. That figure compares with $30.7 billion and $18 billion, respectively, on the New York and London stock exchanges.

The results belied much weaker deal flow on mainland and Hong Kong exchanges this year, as market turmoil forced companies to delay share offerings and, in some cases, call them off at the last minute.

The $73 billion they raised was less than half last year’s total, compared with a 6 percent decline in IPO fundraising on U.S. exchanges.

The U.S. last topped the IPO league tables in 2008.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index is also down nearly 20 percent this year and China’s main index in Shanghai has fallen 23 percent, making Chinese markets among the worst performing in the world.

Until recently, Hong Kong rarely attracted listings by companies outside of China.

But with western markets in a funk and the euro zone gripped by a sovereign debt crisis, the bourse has recently hosted a number of landmark IPOs by foreign groups including Prada (PRDSF), Glencore (GLCNF)  and Samsonite.

“The pipeline of deals is still very heavy in Hong Kong,” said Philippe Espinasse, author of "IPO: A Global Guide." “A lot of deals were delayed or failed to launch this year, which means next year should be fairly busy as long as we get a breather on the macro front.”

Companies raised more than $41 billion in Shenzhen and Shanghai, even as stock prices tumbled to three-year lows.

Chi-Next, a Shenzhen-based exchange for start-ups that is meant to be China’s answer to Nasdaq, raised almost $11 billion in total. That compares with about $15 billion raised in Shenzhen and $16 billion in Shanghai.

Foreign investment banks have, however, failed to capitalize on the mainland capital-raising boom.

Goldman Sachs (GS), the world’s leading equity bookrunner by volume, has not underwritten a single IPO on the mainland since 2009.

Chinese securities firms have fought hard to win market share from their Wall Street rivals, pushing down overall fee levels as a result. Chinese banks captured a combined 30 percent of the Hong Kong IPO market this year, the most since 2006, according to Bloomberg.

The average commission for underwriters in Hong Kong was just 2.2 percent of an IPO’s proceeds compared with 3.5 percent a decade ago.

Digital Domain Media (DDMG) looks good today

  • On September 11, 2012, Digital Domain Media Group Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after defaulting on a $35 million loan, and reached a deal to sell its operating businesses – Digital Domain and Mothership—to stalking horse Searchlight Capital Partners, a private investment firm, for $15 million.

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Sequans Communications (SQNS) looks good today

more info: SQNS profile

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Laredo Petroleum (LPI) looks good today

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Sequans Communications (SQNS) - profile


Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) is a 4G chipmaker, supplying LTE and WiMAX chips to original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers worldwide. Founded in 2003 to address the WiMAX market, the company expanded in early 2009 to address the LTE market. Sequans is based in Paris, France with additional offices throughout the world, including United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and China.






Sequans Communications SA ADR


19 Le Parvis
Paris-La Defense
Paris, 92073
Industry          Electronics
Sector
Technology
Fiscal Year-end
12/2011



Revenue
$68.54M
Net Income
$-2.69M
Employees
196.00





Communications S.A was incorporated under the laws of the French Republic on October 7, 2003. The Company is a fabless designer, developer and supplier of 4G semiconductor solutions for wireless broadband applications. The Company’s solutions incorporate baseband processor and RF transceiver ICs along with our proprietary signal processing techniques, algorithms and software stacks. The Company’s high performance ICs deliver high throughput, low latency, strong signal reach, low power consumption and high reliability in a small form factor and at a low cost. The Company’s solutions serve as the core wireless broadband communications platform in these devices, including smartphones; USB dongles; portable routers; embedded wireless modems for laptops, netbooks, tablets, and other consumer multimedia and industrial devices; consumer premises equipment, or CPE, such as residential gateways; and basestations. The Company’s semiconductor solutions support the two commonly accepted wireless broadband 4G protocols, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, or WiMAX, and Long-Term Evolution, or LTE. The Company’s products have been deployed by many wireless carriers worldwide, including 7 of the 10 largest WiMAX carriers globally by number of subscribers according to BWA Research UK. The Company’s LTE solutions are currently in trials with wireless carriers in the United States and China, where China Mobile has successfully demonstrated its LTE capabilities using its solution at the World Expo in Shanghai and at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, which were both held in 2010. The Company’s solutions are incorporated into devices sold by many original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, and original design manufacturers, or ODMs, including HTC, Huawei, MitraStar Technology (a spin-off of Zyxel), Gemtek, Sagemcom, Teltonika, Accton Wireless Broadband and ZTE. It has developed a portfolio of 4G semiconductor solutions to address a variety of applications and market segments. It offers baseband solutions used to encode and decode data based on 4G protocols that serve as the core wireless processing platform for a 4G device; RF transceivers used to transmit and receive wireless transmissions; and highly integrated SoC and SiP solutions that combine these and other functions into a single die or package. The Company’s SoC solutions integrate the baseband and RF transceiver functions, in some cases with an applications processor and memory. This advanced integration reduces the size, cost, design complexity and power consumption of the 4G solution. The Company’s SiP solutions incorporate additional components that are typically required to build a wireless device, including the radio front-end and power management components from third party suppliers, and integrates them along with its SoC into a single package.


Key stats and ratios

Q3 (Sep '11)2010
Net profit margin12.33%-3.93%
Operating margin7.06%-1.01%
EBITD margin-4.28%
Return on average assets11.77%-6.86%
Return on average equity14.93%-24.94%
Employees196-
Carbon Disclosure Rating--

Friday, December 23, 2011

In-flight Internet firm Gogo files for IPO

(Reuters) — Gogo Inc., an in-flight Internet connectivity provider, filed with the U.S. regulators on Friday to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering of common stock.

The Itasca-based company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that Morgan Stanley, J. P. Morgan and UBS Investment Bank were underwriting the offering.

Gogo, which has Delta Air Lines, US Airways and Bombardier as its customers, expects to list its common stock under the symbol 'GOGO.'

The filing did not reveal how many shares the company plans to sell, their expected price or the exchange it aims to get listed on.

The company intends to use the proceeds from the offering for working capital and other general corporate purposes, it said in the filing.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Laredo Petroleum (LPI) - profile

An independent exploration and production company based in Tulsa, Laredo Energy owns 126,500 acres in the Permian Basin in western Texas and 38,000 acres in the Anadarko Granite Wash in the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma.

  • Raising cash to fund oil and gas production in U.S. shale plays, a focus of intense investment interest for the energy sector and Wall Street alike.
  • Web:  http://laredopetro.com/
The company was founded in 2006 by CEO Randy Foutch, 60, a board member at Helmerich & Payne (HP) and Bill Barrett Corp. (BBG) . In 1996, he founded Lariat Petroleum, sold to Newfield Exploraton Inc. (NFX) in 2001.

Private-equity firm Warburg Pincus, members of management and its independent directors, have invested $710 million of equity in Laredo

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company reported net income of $104 million and revenue of $371.3 million, compared to $51 million earned on revenue of $157 million in the year-ago period.

Zynga (ZNGA) started trading on the NASDAQ on 16 Dec 2011


Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus along with the company management team, board member Bing Gordon, and Mark's wife Alison Pincus, rang the opening bell remotely from its headquarters in San Francisco, California.
Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus along with the company management team, board member Bing Gordon, and Mark's wife Alison Pincus, rang the opening bell remotely from its headquarters in San Francisco, California.

Zipcar (ZIP) looks good today

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Zynga (ZNGA) - profile

  • Around 14% of the company’s outstanding shares will be publicly traded while the rest of the company will be owned by CEO Mark Pincus (16%), employees, and a variety of other early investors. 
  • Chief executive officer Mark Pincus is not selling any of his ownership of Zynga during the offering and neither is the second largest owner KPCB Holdings, who own 11% of shares. There will be a ninety day lockup period before owners can sell shares of the newly public company.

CityVille, Zynga’s biggest game, is described by the company as “Monopoly Meets Main Street” — but it’s also very similar to SimCity.

Words With Friends, which Zynga acquired in December 2010, is basically a socialized, online version of Scrabble.

Zynga’s top games include:
  • CityVille
  • FarmVille
  • Words With Friends
  • Zynga Poker
  • CastleVille
  • Empires & Allies
  • Mafia Wars and Mafia Wars 2
  • Hanging Wit Friends
The top games by monthly active users, according to AppData.com are:
  1. CityVille (48m)
  2. CastleVille (35m)
  3. FarmVille (31m)
  4. Zynga Poker (28m)
  5. Words With Friends (13m)
Keeping Users Active

A core part of Zynga’s business is keeping users engaged and coming back for more. On that front, Zynga’s S-1 shows that the company has 227 million active monthly players who play 2 billion minutes a day of play.

Growth in Zynga games is actually flattening. When Zynga first filed its S-1, the flattening user figures were a concern to some potential investors.

It’s true that active monthly users as of this month are down from where they were in December 2010. This means that Zynga is under pressure to keep users more engaged and to bring new players into the fold.

To keep users coming back, the company frequently does promotional marketing with celebrities, musicians or movie properties. This week, we reported on Zynga’s plans to bring Michael Buble to CityVille.

For some, the biggest potential problem with a Zynga investment is the company’s reliance on Facebook. Zynga and Facebook have a mutual love-hate relationship. Zynga relies on Facebook for its social graph and user interaction — and Facebook generates a lot of revenue from Facebook Credits and other Zynga payments. Still, the two sides don’t always see eye-to-eye.

Zynga has veered into other platforms, including Google+ and iOS. The company also plans on launching its own broader Zynga-based platform for game play.

Here are 11 more interesting stats from Zynga’s IPO filing:
1. Zynga’s generated a lot of money in its history. “We have launched the most successful social games in the industry in each of the last three years and have generated over $1.5 billion in cumulative bookings since our inception in 2007,” the company said in its S1 filing.
2. Zynga has been profitable since 2010. In 2009, the social gaming company lost $52.8 million on $121.5 million in revenue. But the company earned $90.6 million in profit on $597.5 million in revenue last year.
3. Zynga’s revenues are skyrocketing. In Q1 2011, Zynga earned $235.4 million in revenue. That’s up from just $100.9 million in Q4 2010, meaning the company’s revenue more than doubled in just three months.
4. CEO Mark Pincus has absolute control over Zynga. While he only owns 16% of the company’s Class B shares, he also has 100% of Zynga’s class C shares. That means he has absolute voting control and will retain it even after the IPO.
5. We waste lots of time in Zynga games. 38,000 virtual items are created every second. More importantly, Zynga’s players spend a total of 2 billion minutes on the service every day.
6. Zynga boasts 416 million interactions between its users every day. “Historically, our players have created over 4 billion neighbor connections,” the company said in its filing.” We’re not sure what constitutes a neighbor connection, but fostering billions of connections per week is impressive.
7. Zynga makes almost all of its money through virtual goods. In 2008, online games and virtual good sales brought in $5.3 million in revenue while advertising generated $14.1 million. In 2010, those numbers flipped: Zynga made $574.6 million from virtual goods and its online games and just $22.8 million from advertising. The online game revenue likely includes partnerships (such as GagaVille) but it’s still one of the few online companies not dependent on online advertising.
8. Zynga has a lot of employees. As of May 31, 2011, Zynga has 2,268 full-time employees. To support them, Zynga has leased a 345,000 square foot facility in San Francisco.
9. Owen Van Natta is well compensated. Zynga’s EVP, the former CEO of MySpace and the former COO of Facebook, earned $43.2 million in 2010, mostly in the form of stock options and awards. David Wehner (CFO) earned $18 million, while Steven Chiang (co-president of Games) took home $28.9 million. Pincus earned just $520,000 in 2010, but given his giant stake in the company, he doesn’t need too much cash.
10. Zynga is still dependent on Facebook. Zynga gives 30% of its game revenue to Facebook, the same percentage Apple requires for inclusion on the app store. In fact, the word “Facebook” appears more than 200 times in the S1 filing. We’ve even created a word cloud (above) from the S1 to show that Facebook is, by far, the most mentioned company in Zynga’s S-1.
11. Zynga’s user base hasn’t grown in the last year. This is the stat that will worry investors. The company had 236 million monthly active users in Q1 2010, the exact same mount it had in Q1 2011. It actually had more daily active users in Q1 2010 than Q1 2011. We suspect that it’s due to the rapid rise ofFarmVille. It’s difficult to consistently create hit games at that level.

Laredo Petroleum (LPI) started trading on the NYSE on 16 Dec 2011

Laredo Petroleum (LPI) started trading on December 15 and rang the opening bell on Dec 16.

Chairman & CEO Randy A. Foutch of Laredo Petroleum rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on December 16, 2011 in New York City

Mid-Con Energy Partners (MCEP) - profile


Mid-Con Energy Partners (MCEP) priced 5.4 million shares at $18 each, below the deal’s estimated price range of $19 to $21 a share, for IPO proceeds of $97 million. The stock ended with a slight gain at $18.05 a share, after falling below its IPO price during the session.


  • Raising cash to fund oil and gas production in U.S. shale plays, a focus of intense investment interest for the energy sector and Wall Street alike.

Mid-Con Energy centers on energy properties in Colorado, Kansas

Mid-Con Energy is a Delaware limited partnership formed last July to own, operate, acquire and develop producing oil and gas properties in North America, with a focus on areas of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Private investment firm Yorktown Partners owns a stake in the partnership, which reported adjusted income of $19.7 million and revenue of $35 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared to net income of $3.7 million and revenue of $17 million in the year-earlier period.

Alternative-energy firm Coskata plans IPO

(Crain's) — Coskata Inc., the Warrenville, Illinois-based ethanol startup, plans to raise $100 million in a public offering.

In a prospectus filed Friday, Coskata plans to sell shares to finance construction of an ethanol refinery in Alabama and continue research and development. The company, which has 61 employees, uses patented technology developed in part at Argonne National Laboratory to ferment ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips.

This is the second large IPO in the works from a Chicago-area alternative-energy company.


Woodridge-based Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc., a Cargill Inc. spinoff that creates chemicals used for everything from cosmetics to solvents from renewable sources such as palm oil, said in September it also plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO.

Like Elevance, Coskata counts French energy giant Total S.A. as an investor and partner. Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP led the preparation of both IPOs.

The company doesn't yet have paying customers. It lost $23.3 million through the first nine months of 2011 and expects continued losses.

Coskata already has raised $103.8 million from investors, including New York-based Blackstone Group and Khosla Funds, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based clean-tech venture-capital fund started by former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Vinod Khosla.

Khosla Funds owns 27% of the company; Blackstone owns 20%; Boston-based Advanced Technology Ventures owns 18%, and Cambridge, Mass.-based Great Point Ventures owns 16%.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Bonanza Creek Energy (BCEI) - profile

Bonanza Creek Energy searches for a treasure of black gold. The independent oil and natural gas company has exploration and production assets in Arkansas, Colorado, and California. Unlike many in the industry, it operates nearly all of its projects and has an 85% working interest in its holdings. Bonanza Creek produces about 3,700 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day and has proved reserves of 32,860 million BOE, about two-thirds of which is oil and natural gas liquids. Most of the company's proved reserves are at their Mid-Continent holding in Arkansas' Cotton Valley sands region. It also owns and operates a gas processing plant in the region. Bonanza Creek was formed in 2006 and filed to go public in 2011.

Bonanza Creek Energy, Inc., incorporated in December 2010, is an oil and natural gas company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and production of onshore oil and associated liquids-rich natural gas in the United States. The Company’s assets and operations were focused primarily in southern Arkansas (Mid-Continent region) and the Denver Julesburg (DJ) and North Park Basins in Colorado (Rocky Mountain region) during the year ended December 31, 2010. In addition, it owns and operates oil producing assets in the San Joaquin Basin (California region). It operated approximately 99.4% and held an average working interest of approximately 85.8% of its proved reserves as of December 31, 2010. As of December 31, 2010, its net proved reserves was 32,860 million barrels of oil equivalent (MBoe).

410 17th Street
Suite 1500
Denver, CO 80202
United States

Bonanza Creek Energy (BCEI) priced at $17 a share, below the deal’s estimated range of $20 to $22 a share. With nearly 14.8 million shares up for sale in the IPO, it raised $251 million. The stock opened at $15.50 and fell nearly 20% to end at $13.61.

The Denver oil and natural gas company said it plans to raise $195.5 million by selling up to 11.5 million shares at $17 apiece. Earlier this month, Bonanza said it planned to sell those shares at $20 each.

Bonanza said it would use the cash generated from the sale to refinance company debts, and to pay for company operations.

The company owns oil and gas fields in Arkansas, Colorado and California with access to 32.9 million barrels of proven reserves. Its daily production in October was 4,831 barrels of oil equivalent per day. By the end of the year, Bonanza said it will have drilled 115 wells.

Morgan Stanley & Co. and Credit Suisse Securities are listed as joint book-running managers for the offering.

The Company’s proved reserves and its drilling locations in its Mid-Continent acreage are located in the Dorcheat Macedonia field and the McKamie Patton field. In the Dorcheat Macedonia field the Company averages a 83.3% working interest and 68.5% net revenue interest, and all of the Company’s acreage is held by production. It had approximately 78 gross (65.0 net) producing wells and its average net daily production during April 2011, was approximately 1,249 barrels of oil equivalent per day (Boe/d) from a proved reserves base of 15,247 million barrels of oil equivalent, of which about 64.5% was oil and natural gas liquids. As of April 30, 2011, the Company had drilled 13 gross (10.2 net) wells. Immediately northwest of the Dorcheat Macedonia field, it owns and operates the McKamie gas processing facility, which processes all of the gas from the field. It owns additional interests in the Mid-Continent region near the Dorcheat Macedonia field. These include interests in the McKamie-Patton, Atlanta and Beach Creek fields. Its estimated proved reserves in these fields as of December 31, 2010, were approximately 1,947.8 million barrels of oil equivalent, and average net daily production during April 2011, was approximately 239 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Michael Kors (KORS) started trading on the NYSE on 15 Dec 2011

After pricing at $20 — higher than the expected $17-19 range — Michael Kors shares debuted with a 25 percent pop.
  • KORS raised almost $1 billion on its first day of trading
  • For the first half of 2011, revenues are up 60%, profit almost doubled
  • With under 200 stores in North America, the company projects a potential rollout to 400.
  • Internationally, the company has 37 stores in Japan and Europe and is looking for a potential of 100 in each market. You can find Kors products in over 2,000 wholesale points (Harrod's, Saks, Bergdorf)

Michael Kors with his mother Joan outside of the NYSE 

Michael Kors Holdings Limited EVP, CFO & COO Joe Parsons; Michael Kors Holdings Limited Director Lawrence Stroll; NYSE Euronext SVP David Ethridge; Michael Kors Holdings Limited Honorary Chairman & Chief Creative Officer Michael Kors; Michael Kors Holdings Limited Director Silas Chou and Michael Kors Holdings Limited Chairman & CEO John Idol ring the NYSE Opening Bell to celebrate the company’s IPO on the NYSE





Michael Kors with husband Lance Lepere outside of the NYSE 




Monday, December 12, 2011

Imperva (IMPV) looks good today


  • Update 10/10/18:  Private equity firm Thoma Bravo to acquire Imperva in $2.1B buyout. 

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