After 2001, the IPO world began a long death march. But with the surges in Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Shopping.com (NASDAQ:SHOP), JamdatMobile (NASDAQ:JMDT), and other IPOs, it appears that IPOs may be hip again.
A stunning example came yesterday with the debut of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS), which soared 60% to $46.56. Not bad for a company with a $17 billion market cap.
But the IPO market is risky, and taking a bet on a hot offering like the Las Vegas Sands is usually a dicey proposition. Yet there are many other recent IPOs with valuations that are not so lofty.
Take Knoll (NYSE:KNL), which went public this week. The offering price was $15; yesterday, the stock closed at $18.
Founded in 1938, the company designs and manufactures office furniture. The market focus is on mid-to-upper-segment clients. In fact, 30 pieces of its furniture are in the Design Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In the past 12 months, Knoll has generated revenues of $692.6 million, operating income of $72.8 million, and net income of $29.3 million.
Interestingly enough, the U.S. office furniture market grew in 23 of the 25 years prior to 2001. Of course, since then, the market has been awful, primarily because of lackluster economic growth and corporate cutbacks.
Knoll has been able to maintain profitability in the tough years. Big help came from an investor -- Warburg Pincus. This private equity firm stepped in to help implement systems to maximize cash-flow generation.
Warburg Pincus has generated substantial gains in terms of dividends and recapitalization benefits for the stock. But after the IPO, it still owns 64.6% of Knoll. So it has an incentive to continue cranking cash flow from this company. And the pickup in economic growth should also be a nice boost to Knoll. After all, with the recent spate of IPOs, won't these growing companies need furniture?
Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares in the companies mentioned in this article.
