Ipo Calendar 2012

Baby it’s cold outside, but the calendar of initial public offerings rolls out another series of exciting events for investors.   Several filings this month, but one name that’s very recognizable on the January 2012 IPO Calendaris AVG.  AVG Technologies N.V. makes antivirus software and filed this month  at a price of $16 to $18 per share.  They plan to trade on the NYSE with symbol AVG.

Also up on this month’s IPO Calendar is Peak Resorts, only this is a withdrawal from the list.  It’s a restaurant/hotel company which owns and runs ski resorts across the US.  The Peak Resorts IPO was announced late last year.

Biggest news this week is the Renewable Energy Group IPO, which is expected any minute.  They’ve priced their initial public offering at $10 a share, which is a bit low according to analysts.  It’s the only US IPO planned for the third week of January, so it will be watched carefully.  They actually first filed last July for $100 million.

Farmville is heading to the big time as its maker Zynga’s spot on the IPO calendar comes up next week.  It’s big news, since the Zynga IPO is sure to be the biggest initial public offering since Google went public in 2004.  The Zynga IPO will also knock the Groupon IPO out of first place as biggest internet IPO since Google.  Why?  Because Zynga makes the games that provide much of the financing for Facebook, the hottest internet phenomenon since Google.

The terms of the Zynga IPO are huge: they could very well be set to raise $1 billion.  They will be offering one million class A shares at $8.50 to $10 per share.  The Zynga IPO underwriters are Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Zynga was formed in 2007 and in just four years is present in over one hundred countries and over 200 million users per month.  They make their money by selling premium services and virtual goods to a small portion of their users.

What a way for the 2011 IPO calendar to finish up: with a boom!

The December 2011 IPO Calendar opens up this week with a handful of companies set to go public the week of December 5.

One of these is Peak Resorts, a ski resort company with locations across the United States, filed last April.  They have incurred debt from developing the Mt. Snow ski area in Vermont and hope to cover that debt with the Peak Resorts IPO.

Peak Resorts has more ski resort locations than any other operator in the U.S. They hope to raise over $40 million by listing on the NASDAQ.

Another company on the December 2011 IPO Calendar for next week is HomeStreet, a bank based in Seattle.  They’ve been ordered by officials to raise capital for their banks, which are in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii.

The November 2011 IPO calendar  looked so promising a the beginning of the month.  Now, however, with only two more days to go in the month, it looks as if things didn’t turn out so well after all.  Out of the 16 initial public offerings originally slated for the November 2011 IPO calendar, only a handful actually materialized and did well.

Many of the companies listed on the November 2011 IPO calendar were timing their market debuts to take advantage of the previous month’s market strength.  One is Delphi Automotive, which actually filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and is in the process of shifting from a union-based North American workforce to one of temp workers and low cost countries like Brazil. Their IPO began at the low end of the price range.

Another company on the November 2011 IPO calendar was LaShou Group but their IPO has been delayed.  Other November 2011 IPO calendar disappointments besides delays were offerings at the low end.  Usually, analysts want to see fewer but better quality IPOs rather than a lot of cheap ones.

An IPO calendar is useful if you are interested in investing in stocks that are new to the stock market.  It will tell you which companies are expected to begin publicly trading their shares, and when, so you can research those companies and make stock trading decisions.  Each stock analysts will compile his or her own IPO calendar, so it’s important to remember that there is no single, official IPO calendar out there.

That means if you are looking for an IPO calendar, don’t just settle for one source.  There are several sources online, so consult them all.  One analysts’s IPO calendar might be different from another’s.  Analysts who compile IPO calendars use information from investment banks, which they gather from their contacts in those areas.  So you see, an IPO calendar is based on networking, quality of contacts in the field, and how hard an analyst works to compile the most up to date and accurate IPO calendar possible.

They are released each week, which means the world of upcoming IPOs is a fast-paced business.  The information required to compile an IPO calendar is sourced from investment bankers, who get their information from the underwriters themselves.  Underwriters are directly involved with the company that’s thinking of going public, so they have official data on upcoming IPOs, direct from the source.

In the week preceding an upcoming IPO, the underwriters and bankers begin to formalize details about an IPO, which is why every good IPO calendar is updated weekly, to give the most recent information possible.