This is shaping up to be a busy week for Wall Street debutantes. As many as six companies are expected to price their IPOs over the next few days. If the proposed deals successfully hit the exchanges, this would be the market's biggest week for new offerings in nearly two years.
The new offerings are a motley crew:
- Fortinet provides network security, offering both firewalls and antivirus protection.
- 7 Days Group Holdings is a chain of budget hotels in China, perhaps cashing in on the success of publicly traded rival Home Inns & Hotels (NASDAQ:HMIN).
- HealthPort is a manager of medical records, hitting the market at a time when health-care reform promises to deliver some serious winners and losers.
- Cloud Peak Energy is the western-U.S. coal-mining arm of Rio Tinto (NYSE:RTP).
- Global Defense Technology is an engineering services contractor.
- Archipelago Holdings is an online educator. Unlike post-secondary players Apollo Systems (NASDAQ:APOL) and American Public Education (NASDAQ:APEI), Archipelago focuses on grade-school curriculums.
There's a good chance that all six deals will price this week, since the abridged Thanksgiving trading week should be a sleepy one.
The six prospective IPOs have momentum on their side. The two companies that debuted on Friday -- Dollar General (NYSE:DG) and rue21 (NYSE:RUE) -- closed well above their offering prices.
Dollar General is the popular discounter, whereas rue21 operates a chain of more than 500 mall-based apparel chains targeting tweens and early teens.
You just know that the market is hungry for new blood when it's bidding up a pair of retailers at a time when shoppers are still being careful with their disposable income.
This doesn't mean that all new issues are barnburners. Duoyuan Printing (NYSE:DYP) and Addus HomeCare are trading below their IPO prices since going public over the past couple of weeks.
Which of the six proposed IPOs this week are you the most excited about? Share your enthusiasm -- or doubts -- in the comment box below.
