initial public offerings (IPOs) trading on American exchanges

Monday, December 29, 2014

Shake Shack files for IPO

U.S. burger chain Shake Shack on Monday filed for an initial public offering of up to $100 million of shares. The company said it plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SHAK." 

J.P. Morgan,  Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Goldman Sachs & Co, Jefferies, William Blair and Stifel are joint underwriters on the deal. The company, which has 63 outlets in the U.S. and overseas, said it had total sales of $82.5 million in 2013, up from $57 million in 2012 and $19 million in 2010.

  • The $135-billion burger market. The company says burgers are the “largest dine-out segment” in the U.S., with more than $72 billion in sales last year. That makes it twice the size of the pizza market, the next largest category. Burgers are “the quintessential American meal,” but are also popular overseas, with an estimated global market size of over $135 billion, the filing says.
  • Manhattan vs. the world. The company distinguishes the revenues and profit margins at its Manhattan locations vs. its non-Manhattan locations, saying the volumes in Manhattan Shake Shacks have historically been higher because of “the population density and overall familiarity with the Shake Shack brand.” Since most of its future growth is expected to occur outside of Manhattan, the company says investors are better off judging the company by its non-Manhattan numbers.
  • Revenue is measured in “same Shack sales.” Forget “same store sales.” At Shake Shack, they measure performance in “same Shack sales.”  As of Sept. 24, that growth had been slowing down among the 12 Shake Shacks open more than two years. “Same Shack sales growth” slowed to 3.0% as of Sept. 24 from 5.5% the prior year. 
  • International presence. There are Shake Shacks in Lebanon. And Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other countries. There are 27 international Shake Shacks in all, and they are licensed locations, not company operated. The filing says the international locations paid license fees of approximately $3.5 million in fiscal 2013. More could be coming. As the filing says: “we continue to attract substantial interest from potential international licensees around the world and have identified opportunities to expand our licensing footprint in existing and new international markets.”
  • Product Placement sells. Shake Shack has appeared over and over again in movies, TV shows and other media. The company brags that instead of paying for the privilege, it’s charged fees for the use of its facilities. The filing boasts of appearances in the movies Something Borrowed and Tower Heist and “the acclaimed” HBO series The Newsroom. The burger chain has also been featured in segments on The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, CBS Sunday Morning and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Long candidate : Habit Restaurants (HABT)


El Pollo Loco (LOCO) : 5-month performance





Saturday, December 27, 2014

Thursday, December 18, 2014

OnDeck Capital (ONDK) began trading on the NYSE on 17 December 2014



Description



On Deck Capital Inc is a United States-based financing network that offers financing to small businesses that do not meet the criteria for traditional bank loans. The Company uses data aggregation and electronic payment technology to evaluate the financial health of small and medium sized businesses. The OnDeck system also provides a critically needed mechanism for financial institutions and other business service providers to reach the Main Street small business market. It has offices in Kansas City and McLean Virginia. It's small business loans include dental loans, restaurant loans, medical financing, restaurant financing, fast small business loans, fast small business financing, online small business loans, online applications for small business loans, small business loans online, retail capital, fast small business financing, short-term business loans, business equipment financing, small business equipment financing and merchant cash advance.

Address

1400 Broadway Fl 25
NEW YORK, NY 10018-5225
United States

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Potbelly (PBPB) plans major European expansion

Chicago-based sandwich chain Potbelly has signed a “big deal” with a franchisee to expand into a “large European capital” by the early part of 2015, the company's chief executive said today.

CEO Aylwin Lewis, speaking at an Executives' Club of Chicago forum, said Potbelly will eventually have more shops outside of North America than in, all of which will be run by franchisees. In an interview following the event, Lewis declined to say how many stores the company plans to open in Europe or in which cities. He said details will be announced early next year.

CEO Aylwin Lewis

The stores would be the company's first in Europe and are part of Lewis' plan to build “a Potbelly global nation one neighborhood at a time.” The sandwich chain, which had 347 stores as of Sept. 28, expanded into the Middle East in 2012, where it operates a dozen franchise stores in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

The company has said it plans eventually to operate more than 1,000 U.S. stores.

10-month chart

Lewis said the overseas stores will import about 80 percent of Potbelly's domestic menu and add items depending on the location. In its Middle East stores, for example, Potbelly offers a handful of menu items not found in U.S. stores, including baked onion rings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, beef bacon cheese fries and chicken strips.

The news comes amid a rough year for the company, which went public in October 2013. Executives have said Potbelly projects flat to negative low-single-digit comparable store sales for the year, which has sent company shares downward. Same-store sales, a benchmark measure of a chain's financial health, declined 2.2 percent in the first quarter and 1.6 percent in the second quarter before rebounding to .5 percent growth in the most-recent quarter, which ended Sept. 28.

Shares of Potbelly stock debuted at $14 per share and rose more than 120 percent on its first day of trading to just more than $30 per share. Since then, it's been all downhill. Potbelly stock was trading at $11.90 mid-day today, down more than 50 percent for the year.

Since Lewis took over as CEO in June 2008, the company has more than doubled its number of stores, the majority of which are corporate-owned. A handful of domestic stores and all its international locations are operated by franchisees.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Zayo Group (ZAYO) began trading on the NYSE on 17 October 2014


Description

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (ZGL) is a provider of bandwidth infrastructure in the United States and Europe. The Company’s products include leased dark fiber, fiber to cellular towers and small cell sites, wavelength connections, Ethernet and Internet protocol (IP) connectivity and other high-bandwidth offerings. It provides its services over a set of dense metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks and through its interconnect-oriented datacenter facilities. Its customer base includes consumers of bandwidth infrastructure services, such as wireless service providers; telecommunications service providers; financial services companies; social networking, media and Web content companies; education, research and healthcare institutions, and governmental agencies. It provides its bandwidth infrastructure services for a fixed monthly recurring fee under contracts. The Company operates in three segments: Physical Infrastructure, Lit Services and Other.

Address

1805 29th St Unit 2050
BOULDER, CO 80301-1067
United States 

Key stats and ratios

Q3 (Sep '14)2014
Net profit margin-34.47%-16.17%
Operating margin-12.32%4.82%
EBITD margin-35.10%
Return on average assets-8.77%-3.91%
Return on average equity-124.83%-35.52%
Employees1,513

Friday, December 12, 2014

Hortonworks (HDP) began trading on the NASDAQ on 12 December 2014



Description
Hortonworks, Inc. (Hortonworks) is a provider and distributor of Hadoop solutions. The Company’s solutions offer re-platforming of data center architectures. Its products include Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) and Hortonworks Sandbox. The Company’s Hortonworks Data Platform is an open source, data management platform built on Apache Hadoop and powered by YARN. The Hortonworks Data Platform is built from various open source software components, including Apache Hadoop and is designed for mainstream enterprise adoption. The Hortonworks Data Platform provides linear storage and compute across a range of access methods. The Hortonworks Sandbox is a personal and portable Hadoop environment, which provides the way to get started with Enterprise Grade Hadoop and the Hortonworks Data Platform. It provides support subscription offerings and related professional services to support subscription customers, including enterprises, educational institutions and government agencies.

Address

3460 W Bayshore Rd
PALO ALTO, CA 94303-4227
United States 

Website 

hortonworks.com

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Calithera Biosciences (CALA) began trading on the NASDAQ on 2 October 2014


Address

343 Oyster Point Blvd # 200
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94080-1913
United States

Key stats and ratios

Q3 (Sep '14)2013
Net profit margin--
Operating margin--
EBITD margin--
Return on average assets-59.79%-65.31%
Return on average equity--
Employees36

SeaWorld (SEAS) CEO to Step Down as Park Attendance Drops

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. said Thursday that its CEO is stepping down as head of the company and named its chairman as interim leader.

Attendance at its theme parks has been weak since the recession and has dropped in three of the past four quarters. SeaWorld has also been battling negative publicity since the release of "Blackfish" last year, a documentary that suggested its treatment of animals may have led to the death of trainers.

** weekly chart **

SeaWorld has been trying to combat the decline with a turnaround effort. It said Thursday that it will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs as part of previously announced cost cuts, which are expected to save $50 million annually. The company would not say how many jobs it planned to cut.

Jim Atchison, the chief executive officer of SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS)

Jim Atchison has served as CEO and president since 2009. He will become vice chairman and will be nominated to the board of its independent nonprofit conservation fund.

Chairman David D'Alessandro will take over as interim CEO Jan. 15 and serve until a permanent replacement is found.

The company on Thursday also appointed two new directors to its board: Ellen Tauscher, a former congresswoman from California, and former advertising executive William Gray. Gray has also been a senior adviser to Blackstone, an investment firm and minority shareholder in SeaWorld.

Shares of SeaWorld, which operates 11 theme parks across the country, rose 16 cents in extended trading. Its stock closed Thursday up 45 cents to $16.09. The Orlando, Florida-based company's shares have lost about 45 percent in the past year.

Lending Club (LC) began trading on the NYSE on 11 December 2014


LendingClub CEO Renaud Laplanche (third from right) embraces company CFO Carrie Dolan during opening bell ceremonies of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Co-founded in 2007 by CEO Renaud Laplanche, LendingClub pioneered the peer-to-peer lending industry that now includes dozens of smaller competitors.


It bypasses the traditional bank-loan process by connecting borrowers with lenders for personal loans up to $35,000 that can be used for everything from paying off debt to paying for a vacation.

Small businesses can borrow up to $100,000.

Borrowers pay lower interest rates than what’s offered by credit cards; investors can fund a variety of loans for as little as $25 each and receive steady monthly income as borrowers make payments.

LendingClub, which on its website says it has arranged more than $6.2 billion in loans and paid nearly $600 million in interest to investors, generates revenue through transaction and service fees on the loans.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Monday, December 1, 2014

Citius Pharmaceuticals (CTXR) began trading on the Nasdaq on 1 December 2014

Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes critical care products. It primarily focuses on developing anti-infective, cancer care, and prescription products.
  • Headquarters: Cranford, NJ
  • Founded: 2007
  • citiuspharma.com
  • Sector: Healthcare
  • Industry: Biotechnology
  • Full Time Employees: 7



Friday, November 21, 2014

INC Research Holding (INCR) began trading on the NASDAQ on 7 November 2014



Description

INC Research Holdings Inc (INC Research) is a contract research organization (CRO). The Company is engaged in Strategic clinical development, which provides a range of Phase I to Phase IV clinical development services for the biopharmaceutical and medical device industry; Standalone services, such as Project management, Data and biostatistics, Monitoring, Quality and compliance, Safety and pharmacovigilance, Regulatory affairs, Study start-up, Patient recruitment, Pregnancy registries, Abuse liability, Alcohol interactions and Medical writing, and Pharmaceutical consulting. The Company operates in North America, South America, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. The Company uses web-based electronic endpoint adjudication systems and monitoring techniques.

Address

3201 Beechleaf Ct Ste 600
RALEIGH, NC 27604-1500
United States

Key stats and ratios

Q3 (Sep '14)2013
Net profit margin4.20%-4.17%
Operating margin7.61%3.16%
EBITD margin-10.23%
Return on average assets3.82%-3.33%
Return on average equity17.12%-14.17%
Employees5,500

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Habit Restaurants (HABT) began trading on the NASDAQ on 14 November 2014

Shares of Habit Restaurants (HABT) more than doubled in their trading debut, underscoring the growing appetite among investors for stocks of fast casual restaurant chains - increasingly, the choice of health-conscious diners.
  • The Habit Burger Grill or just The Habit as it is commonly known, is a fast casual restaurant chain focused on hamburgers, salads, sandwiches, shakes, and french fries, with its headquarters in Irvine, California. Wikipedia
  • Founded: 1969, Santa Barbara, CA
  • CEO: Russell William Bendel






Restaurants such as El Pollo Loco (LOCO) and Zoe's Kitchen (ZOES), which also made their public debut this year, have caught diners' imagination with fresh ingredients and options like whole wheat and gluten-free foods.

That has sent growth-hungry investors scouting for the next Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG).

Including Habit, known for its charburgers, five restaurant operators have raised about $486 million in U.S. IPOs this year, compared to $231 million raised by two restaurants last year.

All but one of this year's debutantes are fast casuals.


Shares of Zoe's Kitchen, which shot up 74 percent in their debut in April, have more than doubled since then, and El Pollo Loco's are near that mark.

Zoe's shares are trading at 351.34 times forward earnings, and El Pollo at 48.92 times forward earnings, compared with 15.94 times for McDonalds's Corp (MCD) and 38.73 times for the overall restaurant sector, according to StarMine.

J. Alexander's Holdings Inc has filed for an IPO, and Shake Shack is reported to have picked banks for an offering.

The investor demand comes handy for fast casual restaurants looking to expand.

Habit, present in only four U.S. states, and Zoe's plan to double the number of restaurants in next four years.

Sales of U.S. fast casual restaurants are expected to exceed $50 billion by 2018, from about $34.5 billion in 2013, according to research firm Technomic.

Not all fast casual operators have been able to sustain the euphoria surrounding their public debuts, because of issues specific to their business.

Potbelly Corp's (PBPB) stock has lost 10 percent of its value since listing in 2013. Papa Murphy's Holdings (FRSH) has lost 17 percent of its value since it May debut.

Alibaba (BABA), 2-month performance


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

STORE Capital (STOR) began trading on the NYSE on 18 November 2014

S|T|O|R|E is an internally managed net-lease real estate investment trust, or REIT, that is a leader in the acquisition, investment and management of Single Tenant Operational Real Estate, or STORE Properties.

  • Share Price $18.50
  • Shares Offered 27,500,000
  • Offer Amount $508,750,000.00
  • Lockup Period (days) 180
  • Lockup Expiration 5/18/2015
  • Quiet Period Expiration 12/29/2014
Today's IPO for STORE Capital (NYSE: STOR) closed up 5.4% to $19.50 Tuesday after pricing f 27,500,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $18.50 per share.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, KeyBanc Capital Markets and Wells Fargo Securities are acting as joint lead managers for the offering, and Baird, BMO Capital Markets, Comerica Securities, Raymond James, Stifel and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey are acting as co-managers for the offering.

STORE Capital Corporation is an internally managed net-lease real estate investment trust, or REIT, that is a leader in the acquisition, investment and management of Single Tenant Operational Real Estate, which is its target market and the inspiration for its name. STORE Capital is one of the largest and fastest growing net-lease REITs and owns a large, well-diversified portfolio that consists of investments in 850 property locations, substantially all of which are profit centers, in 46 states as of September 30, 2014.