America's IPO window is reopening
Published Date: 1/23/2024
Source: axios.com

Wall Street's IPO drought may finally be ending.

The big picture: The revival — which took off this month — is being driven by strong stock market performance, with the S&P 500 recently hitting a fresh record and improving economic sentiments.


Driving the news: Two U.S. health care companies, BrightSpring and CG Oncology, are expected to go public this week, with plans to raise more than $1 billion in aggregate.

  • BrightSpring is a Louisville, Kentucky-based home and community-based health care services provider owned by private equity giant KKR, which could be valued north of $3 billion.
  • CG Oncology is an Irvine, California-based developer of immunotherapies for bladder cancer, which would be worth around $1 billion if it prices its IPO in the middle of its anticipated range.

Elsewhere: Amer Sports, the Finnish maker of Wilson tennis rackets and other sports gear, will hit the road this week to raise around $1.7 billion in an IPO. There's also a Reuters report that Reddit will launch its long-awaited offering in March.

  • Earlier this month, Woodstock, Georgia-based homebuilder Smith Douglas went public, and Kazakhstani super-app Kaspi.kz raised $1 billion in a Nasdaq float.

By the numbers: Over 100 companies raised $19.4 billion in U.S. IPOs last year, according to Renaissance Capital.

  • That was a marked improvement over 71 companies raising $7.7 billion in 2022, but well short of the 397 companies that raised $142.4 billion in 2021.
  • It seemed like the IPO window was reopening last fall, thanks to successful offerings from companies like Birkenstock and Klaviyo, but the frost returned when those companies' shares failed to perform well in the aftermarket.