Yesterday was another good day for investors hungry for new meat. A pair of prolific IPOs, those of Banco Santander Brasil (Nasdaq: BSBR ) and Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq: VRSK ) , launched yesterday.
They went in different directions. Banco Santander's Brazilian spinoff closed slightly below its $13.40 offering price, but this was also a roughly $8 billion deal. It wasn't going to have much of a pop, given the ample supply of freshly minted shares.
Verisk Analytics fared considerably better. The insurance-risk specialist went public at $22, above its initial pricing range, and that still wasn't high enough. The stock closed 24% higher at $27.22 yesterday.
Back in the saddle again
We're just ankle-deep into October, yet we've already seen several Wall Street debutantes, including Education Management (Nasdaq: EDMC ) , Echo Global Logistics (Nasdaq: ECHO ) , and Talecris Biotherapeutics (Nasdaq: TLCR ) . This big wave of IPOs follows the favorable momentum established last month, with clean-energy battery maker A123 Systems (Nasdaq: AONE ) and China's Shanda Games (Nasdaq: GAME ) among the companies going public during the final week of September.
It is refreshing to see the pipeline gushing again. Sure, there will come a point at which we get too much of a good thing. Once going public becomes so easy that even crummy companies with iffy financials and iffier prospects can sell an IPO, then it's time to worry. For now, the handful of underwriter-vetted offerings have involved primarily quality businesses that simply had to delay their debuts.
Moreover, investors aren't just engaging in frenzied nibbling on every company that goes public. Banco Santander Brasil joins Echo Global Logistics and Shanda Games as recent IPOs trading below their offering price.
New stocks are coming, and investors aren't getting greedy. That's the perfect combination to keep the new offerings coming at a sober and steady pace.
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