initial public offerings (IPOs) trading on American exchanges

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Pintec Technology (PT) began trading on the Nasdaq on 25 October 2018

Sector: Financial Services
Industry: Credit Services
Full Time Employees: 362
Founded in 2012
Headquartered in Beijing, China.




StoneCo (STNE) began trading on the Nasdaq on 25 October 2018

StoneCo Ltd. provides financial technology solutions that empower merchants and integrated partners to conduct electronic commerce across in-store, online, and mobile channels in Brazil.
  • Brazilian version of Square (SQ)
  • Sector: Technology
  • Industry: Software - Application
  • Founded in 2000
  • HQ in São Paulo, Brazil.
  • http://www.stone.co

StoneCo prices upsized 50.72 mln share IPO (from 47.73 mln shares) at $24.00, above the expected $21.00-23.00 range


Carbon Black (CBLK) reported earnings on Thur 25 Oct 2018 (a/h)

** charts before earnings **

 




** charts after earnings **





Carbon Black beats by $0.05, beats on revs; guides Q4 EPS in-line, revs in-line 
  • Reports Q3 (Sep) loss of $0.20 per share, $0.05 better than the S&P Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.25); revenues rose 28.7% year/year to $53.4 mln vs the $52.64 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.
  • Non-GAAP gross profit was $42.1 million, representing a 79% non-GAAP gross margin.
  • During the three months ended September 30, 2018, CBLK used ($13.4) million of cash in operations and ($2.1) million in capital expenditures and capitalized software development costs, leading to negative free cash flow of ($15.4) million, compared to free cash flow of $11,000 in the year-ago period.
  • Co issues in-line guidance for Q4, sees EPS of (0.25)-(0.24) vs. ($0.25) S&P Capital IQ Consensus; sees Q4 revs of 55.3-55.8 mln vs. $54.94 mln S&P Capital IQ Consensus.

YETI Holdings (YETI) began trading on the NYSE on Thur 25 October 2018

YETI Holdings (NYSE) priced downsized 16 mln share IPO (from 20 mln shares) at $18.00, below the expected $19.00-21.00 range






Wednesday, October 24, 2018

CURO Group (CURO) reported earnings on Wed 24 Oct 2018 (a/h)

CURO Group is a payday lender -- i.e., it provides short-term credit to underbanked consumers.
Sector: Financial Services
Industry: Credit Services
Full Time Employees: 4,180
Founded: 1997
Headquarters: Wichita, Kansas
http://www.curo.com



 





The company was formerly known as Speedy Group Holdings Corp. and changed its name to CURO Group Holdings Corp. in May 2016.

Recent IPO CURO Group indicated lower following Q3 earnings miss with lowered 2018 EPS guidance
  • Reports Q3 adj EPS of $0.23 vs $0.52 Capital IQ Consensus; revs +10.9% y/y to $283 mln vs $277.3 mln Capital IQ Consensus
  • 2018 Adjusted Diluted Earnings per Share of $1.84 to $1.88 compared to prior range of $2.25 to $2.40 (vs $2.45 est); Revenue of $1.090 -1.095 billion , increased from prior range of $1.025 -1.080 billion (vs $1.09 bln est); Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $215 -218 million compared to prior range of $245 -255 million

Friday, October 19, 2018

Niu Technologies (NIU) began trading on the Nasdaq on 19 October 2018

Niu Technologies designs, manufactures, and sells high-performance smart e-scooters.  It is the largest lithium-ion battery-powered electric scooters company in China and a leader in the European market in 2017, according to CIC. The first lifestyle brand for urban mobility in China, NIU has successfully created a new industry category - smart electric two-wheeled vehicles.

Niu Technologies priced downsized 7 mln share IPO (from 8.3 mln shares) at $9.00, the low-end of the reduced $9.00-10.00 range
Opened for trading at $8.50 after pricing IPO at $9


Niu Technologies visited the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square in celebration of its initial public offering (IPO).








The Company
Niu distributes several models of its scooters, as well as lifestyle accessories, through online and offline channels in 23 countries. As of June, the company has sold 431,500 e-scooters in China and overseas, especially growing its presence in e-scooter markets in Europe, Southeast Asia, and India.

According to the company's preliminary F-1 filing, Niu is the largest lithium-ion battery-powered e-scooter company in China, in addition to leading the European market.

As of June 2018, the company sold over 431,000 products and held a 26 percent market share in sales volume and 39.5 percent in sales value.

The product portfolio consists of the N, M and U series, each with several models and specifications.

Niu said it has an opportunity to expand on strong brand awareness.

“We offer the NIU app as an integral part of the user experience, and the app had over 457,000 registered users as of June 30, 2018. NIU fan clubs are established in over 50 cities in China, where fans actively organize NIU scooter-related events.”

As of 2018, the company collaborates with 205 partners and over 500 franchise stores in China, as well as an additional 18 distributors worldwide.

SolarWinds (SWI) began trading on the NYSE on 19 October 2018

  • SolarWinds priced 25 mln share IPO at $15.00, the low-end of the reduced $15.00-16.00 range
  • Opened for trading at $15.30



SolarWinds Corp. CEO Kevin Thompson and employees celebrate the company's IPO during the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., October 19, 2018.


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Any thoughts on Solarwinds going public tomorrow? Small float and high growth? Thanks a lot!

Yes sure.  First, this isn't a clean new from scratch IPO.  This was a formerly public company which got taken private.  And what I can say is that it wasn't one of my favorite cloud companies back then -- as I def. favored names like WDAY, SPLK, CYBR, DATA, NEWR, VRNS etc...  And all those names did just as well if not magnitudes better than SWI (Solarwinds) did.  There were times I had looked at SWI as it was trading at a pretty attractive valuation vs. it's growth rate.  

However, back then 2015-16ish (before it was acquired), a name like SPLK and VRNS as just a couple examples lined up much better on a Price/Growth basis.  So in short, I have to see where they price SWI and how much it pops.  As given it's growth I don't think it should garner a mega premium multiple.  Just doing some back of the napkin math... just a 20% pop off the IPO price would put this name around 7X forward REV's.  That's not super cheap for a sub 20%ish grower. 

Bottom line, at or below the 'lowered' IPO price there's definitely value.  However, if they really pop it, I'll avoid it at first and see if it sets up for a ST IPO "runner" trade.  However, on a big pop I'm more likely to trade this just like I did with SVMK -- where I avoided the early pop/hype.  Then I let it drop and drop and drop and ended it picking it up in the high $11's or almost 40% below where they traded their first day.  

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Endocyte (ECYT) to be acquired by Novartis (NVS) for $2.1B

  • Endocyte (ECYT) on Thursday announced its $2.1-billion cash sale to Novartis AG (NVS). The deal values Endocyte at $24 per share, representing a 54-percent premium from the firm’s $15.56 Wednesday closing price.
  • Endocyte's radioligand portfolio, currently in mid-stage trials for cancer treatment, will supplement Novartis’ oncology pipeline of 33 candidates. Altogether, the buyer boasts 99 candidates in various stages of development.
  •   





    (Bloomberg) -- Loyal investors who stuck with Endocyte Inc. during a three-and-a-half year slump are celebrating today after a Novartis AG buyout offer sent shares of the cancer drug biotech soaring. But those who lost patience in Endocyte are left to wonder what might have been.

    Endocyte rallied more than 1,600 percent in the past 13 months as it advanced its prostate drug candidate -- climaxing on Thursday as Novartis splashed out $2.1 billion on a friendly buyout. The deal came at a 54 percent premium to Wednesday’s close and rewarded a group of sector specialist funds that made big bets on Endocyte, a small Indiana-based drugmaker that’s faced down concern its drug might not be ready for prime time.

    The biggest winner was apparently VenBio Select Advisor LLC, known for making bets across the drug discovery landscape and the largest holder with more than 7 percent of Endocyte as of the latest filing period ended June 30. VenBio bought its entire position only in the first quarter, when Endocyte sold for between $3 and $11, according to Bloomberg data. Novartis offered $24 a share for Endocyte today.

    Boston-based RA Capital Management bought almost an additional 1.8 million shares in the second quarter, and was the second-largest Endocyte holder as of June 30, filings show.

    The value of VenBio and RA Capital’s most recent positions, as reported to the SEC for the second quarter, each rose to about $132 million at Endocyte’s peak on Thursday.

Monday, October 15, 2018

SendGrid (SEND) to be acquired by Twilio (TWLO) for $2 billion

Twilio (TWLO) said it has agreed to buy the Denver-based email platform company for $2 billion in an all-stock deal. Under the terms of their agreement, a Twilio subsidiary will be merged with and into SendGrid, with SendGrid surviving as a wholly owned subsidiary of San Francisco-based Twilio, the companies said.
  

At the closing, expected for the first half of 2019, each share of SendGrid stock will be converted into the right to receive 0.485 shares of Twilio stock, representing a per-share price for SendGrid stock of $36.92 based on Twilio's closing price on Monday. Both boards will have to approve the deal. The companies will report third-quarter results on Nov. 6, but they said Monday they both have exceeded their guidances provided earlier in the year. Guidance for a combined company will be provided after the deal is closed, the companies said.

** charts after announcement **

 


** charts before  announcement **

 



 


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SendGrid Moves From 'Pipe To Application'

"Growth drivers for SendGrid are fairly straight forward — it's adding customers and getting those customers to send more emails through SendGrid pipes," Piper Jaffray analyst Alex Zukin said in a note to clients.

Zukin added that Sendgrid is moving from "pipe to application." That means adding more value-add marketing services to a business that sends over a billion emails a day. Customers include Uber, Yelp, eBay, Spotify, Airbnb and Glassdoor.

"Future products, much like Marketing today, should come with higher prices and margin profiles," Zukin said. "Cost per email for the company's marketing application are 3 times to 4 times that of core Email API. The company believes that at scale marketing has the potential to be more profitable than Email API."

Other companies that use cloud-based APIs include digital payments startup Stripe and Twilio, the latter of which sells communications messaging software.

Following its IPO, SendGrid stock moved up steadily, closing around 31 on March 9. SendGrid stock fell 10% on May 2, the day after it reported first-quarter results as investors were disappointed.

But SendGrid's second-quarter results, which came on July 31, sparked a rally. Profit climbed to 5 cents per share from 2 cents a year earlier. Revenue jumped 32% to $35.7 million.

Friday, October 12, 2018

Equillium (EQ) began trading on the Nasdaq on 12 October 2018

Equillium, Inc., a biotechnology company, develops products for autoimmune and inflammatory, or immuno-inflammatory disorders. The company was formerly known as Attenuate Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. and changed its name to Equillium, Inc. in May 2017.
Equillium opened for trade at $14.35 after pricing 4.7M share IPO at $14/share



Equillium chairman and CEO Dan Bradbury previously headed another La Jolla drug maker, the diabetes drug manufacturer Amylin Pharmaceuticals, which was founded in 1987.

Bradbury, who worked at Amylin for 18 years, was CEO from 2007 to 2012, when the company was jointly acquired for $5.3 billion, plus $1.7 billion in Amylin debt, by New York-based pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN).

The acquisition followed the regulatory approval of Amylin’s drug Bydureon, a once-per-week diabetes shot.

Bristol later sold its stake in Amylin to AstraZeneca, shuttered the San Diego company’s operations and elsewhere, and folded its personnel into its other operations.

Prior to his time at Amylin, Bradbury spent 10 years with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) predecessor SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals in marketing and sales.

Equillium said it intends to use about $50 million in IPO proceeds to fund research and development of EQ001, specifically a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial for the acute form of GVHD in early 2019, and a Phase 2 clinical trial for the chronic version of the disease and a proof-of-concept clinical trial for the treatment of severe asthma in the first half of 2019.

Anaplan (PLAN) began trading on the NYSE on 12 October 2018

Anaplan is a cloud-based business planning and performance management platform based on a single hub where business users can create and use models.  In the Anaplan IPO prospectus, the San Francisco-based company calls itself a pioneer in a category it calls connected planning, helping companies make better and faster decisions.

  • Founded in the United Kingdom, the company is now headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
  • The software company brought on its chief financial officer just a few weeks ago.
  • As of July 31, Anaplan had 979 customers using its platform. Customers include Coca-Cola (KO), VMware (VMW) and HP Inc. (HPQ)
  • Founded: 2006
  • anaplan.com


Anaplan opened for trading at $24.25 after IPO priced at $17.00



Frank Calderoni, president and chief executive officer of Anaplan Inc., center, rings the opening bell during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018. 






Anaplan shares jumped nearly 43 percent to $24.30 by the end of the first day of trading, giving the company a market capitalization of almost $3 billion. Anaplan said Thursday night that it raised $263.5 million in the offering, selling shares at $17 a piece.

CEO Frank Calderoni told CNBC’s “Squawk Alley ” that the company did not consider delaying the IPO amid the market rout, which sent the Nasdaq to its lowest close since May on Thursday. He said that business remains strong and that the company has almost 1,000 customers, including some companies with tens of thousands of users.

Anaplan benefited from a broader market rebound on Friday, with the Nasdaq climbing 2.3 percent.

Anaplan joins a crop of emerging software companies that have hit the public markets in 2018, including DocuSign, Dropbox, Elastic and Smartsheet. Market volatility hasn’t been of much concern for those companies, as tech stocks have generally trended up throughout the year. But this week’s turmoil led some companies to delay their offerings, most notably Tencent Music.

Founded in 2008, Anaplan sells cloud-based software that companies use for business planning. Competitors include IBM, Oracle and SAP.

In addition to leading the company, for a few months Calderoni also served as interim chief financial officer. Last month, Anaplan hired Dave Morton as CFO after a stint at Tesla that lasted just a few weeks.