It had been a quiet July on the new-offering front until Qlik Tech (Nasdaq: QLIK), RealD (NYSE: RLD), and SMART Tech (Nasdaq: SMT) went public during the last two trading days of last week.
Interactive whiteboard maker SMART may have had a nondescript market introduction on Thursday -- currently trading just below its $17 IPO price -- but Friday's debut of Qlik and RealD was greeted by better than 20% pops in each of the technology companies.
Qlik is a business intelligence software company that is both profitable and growing. RealD isn't currently in the black, but its pole position as the leading licensor of 3-D technology being incorporated in more and more multiplex screens makes it a hot play on the box office boom for premium theatrical releases.
For now, Qlik and RealD remain the early winners among the half-dozen companies to go public this young quarter.
Chinese digital mapping specialist AutoNavi (Nasdaq: AMAP) was the first to go public this month. AutoNavi's digital map database of China covers roughly 2.8 million kilometers of roadway and more than 12.5 million points of interest.
One company went public the following week, Peoples Federal Bancshares (Nasdaq: PEOP). Then there was last Wednesday's debut of coal miner Oxford Resource Partners (NYSE: OXF).
|
Company |
Offer |
7/19/10 |
Gain |
|---|---|---|---|
|
AutoNavi |
$12.50 |
$13.25 |
6% |
|
Peoples Federal Bancshares |
$10.00 |
$10.54 |
5% |
|
Oxford Resources |
$18.50 |
$18.40 |
(1%) |
|
SMART Tech |
$17.00 |
$16.54 |
(3%) |
|
RealD |
$16.00 |
$19.85 |
24% |
|
Qlik Tech |
$10.00 |
$13.05 |
31% |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
The performances had been mostly uneventful before Friday's tech duo lit up the faces of underwriters and initial investors. The blowout success stories are important in keeping the pipeline of new offerings flowing. If one IPO after another tanks, underwriters have an uphill battle in moving freshly minted stock certificates.
Underwriters should also be encouraged by the bounce in Tesla Motors (Nasdaq: TSLA). The electric-car maker briefly traded above $30 on the second day of its publicly traded life, well ahead of its initial $17 price tag. Unfortunately, Tesla skidded after that. A week later, the stock fell below even its $17 starting line to become one of the more shocking busted IPOs. It has been a smoother road for Tesla since bottoming out in the mid-teens. It closed at $21.91 Monday, a healthy 29% gain for the antsy yet lucky shareholders who got in on the IPO.
There are no debutantes lining up to hit the market this week. This may actually be a good thing, since it lets the success of RealD and Qlik linger, hopefully inspiring other successful offerings during the second half of the year.
What private company would you like to see go public in 2010? Share your answer in the comments box below.
