IPO Boutique Brief: Syndicate Market Welcomes Quiet Week

When talking about equity capital markets (ECM), the term ‘less is more’… is not usually a promising sign. But after a flurry of activity in the first six weeks of 2021, the lighter week is welcomed.

So far in 2021, there have been 45 IPOs raising a total of $21.4b in cash. The likes of Affirm Holdings Inc, Playtika Holding Inc., RLX Technology Inc., Shoals Technology Group Inc., Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Holdings, Qualtrics International Inc and Bumble Inc have all raised more than $1 billion.  The first two weeks of February was a biotech frenzy featuring 16 deals in the sector.

The secondary market had the same fever-pitch with 173 offerings priced prior to President’s Day.

To compare this to 2020 data (which was pre-pandemic)…the numbers would be as follows: 17 IPOs, $4.8b raised and 108-secondary offerings priced.

Translation: the quiet week following the President’s Day holiday is good for market-digestion.

But looking ahead, we do not anticipate a sustained slowdown in the syndicate market. The current IPO pipeline is still “in need of filings”, however, there are companies that have officially filed paperwork with the SEC. And.. as of late Friday afternoon… a total of four companies filed for IPO with the “high likelihood” of debuting in March: Prometheus Biosciences, Inc., Longboard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Olo, Inc, and Gain Therapeutics, Inc.

Our “forecast” for the rest of February and March includes First High School Education, Purpose, Built Brands, LumiraDx, Decipher Biosciences, Oscar Health, Coupang, JOANN, Cricut Inc, Hayward Holdings and Karat Packaging to potentially IPO. In the secondary market, one could ‘surmise’ that the robust IPOs of 4Q 2020 could once again tap equity capital markets in the coming weeks. This could include the likes of Snowflake, JFrog Ltd., C3.AI or any of the numerous biotech offerings to come. 

Link to IPO Boutique’s IPO Pipeline

Ultimately, many active syndicate players want to know: will we have the same deal flow of 2H 2020 and so far this year that has been a windfall for investors?

We do not believe that one slow week in syndicate is any reason to panic.