Ernst & Young Says IPOs Continue to Gain Steam in 2011

The IPO pipeline, which slowed to a trickle in 2008 (when just six companies went public), rebounded significantly during the last three months of 2010, as 57 companies went public and 56 others registered for IPOs, according to a report from the Ernst & Young accounting firm.

The rate of replenishment represents a healthy balance that is being driven by an increase in IPO filings by small companies, says Mark Sogomian, an IPO leader at Ernst & Young. Two-thirds of the registrations (75 companies) were seeking to raise $100 million or less, according to the accounting firm. Among total filings, the average amount sought is $191 million, down by 3 percent from the previous quarter, when the average was $198 million.

At the end of December, Ernst & Young said a total of 121 companies had filed to go public on U.S. exchanges, including 16 based in China. (The increase in Chinese IPOs reflects a trend that the National Venture Capital Association also highlighted about a month ago.) But California now ranks No. 1 in terms of registrations, with 22 California companies in registration at the end of December. (At least one of those, San Francisco-based Epocrates, went public last week.)

Ernst & Young says the largest company to file is HCA Holdings, the largest for-profit hospital operator, which is seeking to raise $4.6 billion. The next largest are media and entertainment company Nielsen Holdings, which filed to raise $1.75 billion, and the Kinder Morgan oil and gas company, which is seeking $1.5 billion.

Technology companies make up the biggest industry sector, with 25 seeking a total of $2.5 billion. Ernst & Young counted 17 pharmaceutical filings, seven biotechs, and four telecoms.  The firm also provided a state-by-state list of filings, (with the responsible Ernst & Young in parenthesis); the listings for states with Xconomy websites is here:

California

Language Line Services Holding

Newegg

Demand Media

NeoPhotonics

Cornerstone OnDemand

InvenSense

Peregrine Semiconductor

IronPlanet

Corsair Components

Ellie Mae

Ambit Biosciences

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals

Fluidigm

Epocrates

ServiceSource International

Reply!

Responsys

Fallbrook Technologies

GameFly

Circle Bancorp

IASO Pharma

Quark Pharmaceuticals

Massachusetts

Aveon Group

Sige Semiconductor

Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies

Zipcar

GlassHouse Technologies

NEXX Systems

Washington

Univar

Atossa Genetics

Michigan

Affinia Group Holdings

TA Delaware


Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.