IPOs & Other Initial Public Listings

IPO/ Listing Action

IPO & Other Listings

Priced/Listed Last Week — 7 listings

• BioAge Labs ($BIOA +17% from IPO), a biotech startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Eli Lilly, and Khosla Ventures, developing therapies for aging.

• Guardian Pharmacy Services ($GRDN, +27% from IPO), a pharmacy provider for long-term care facilities.

• BKV Corporation ($BKV, +0.28% from IPO), a vertically integrated natural gas company.

• 3 new sub-$10M IPOs: Premium Catering ($PC, -13% from IPO), Legacy Education ($LGCY, +10% from IPO), Innovation Beverage Group ($IBG, -37% from IPO)

• Foxx Development ($FOXX, +9% from SPAC IPO) listed after closing its SPAC merger with Acri Capital (ACAC).

Head to ListingTrack.io to see all of the Latest Listings (all listings including IPOs)

Expected This Week — 9 listings

• 3 Spinoff listings:

  • Amentum (AMTM), formed from the spinoff of Jacobs ($J) critical missions solutions and cyber & intelligence businesses and subsequent merger with Amentum, an advanced engineering firm and government contractor. The spinoff and merger transaction was completed last week.

  • South Bow (SOBO), TC Energy’s ($TRP) liquids pipelines business.

  • The convenience retail property portfolio of SITE Centers ($SITC), Curbline Properties (CURB)

• 1 PE-backed IPO: StandardAero (SARO)

• 1 Direct Listing: ZenaTech (ZENA)

• 1 REIT IPO: FrontView REIT (FVR)

• 1 Chinese Venture-backed IPO: BingEx (FLX)

• 2 APAC sub-$10M IPOs: ZJK Industrial (ZJK) and SAG Holdings (SAG)

Post-IPO Coverage and IPO Market Commentary

• 59% of CFOs in a recent survey by the SoftBank Vision Fund said they expect the IPO window to fully reopen in 2025, while more than 94% of respondents said they don’t intend to take their own companies public in the next 12 months. — BB

See the Top Performers from Listings 2019-

New Listing Pipeline

Listing Plans and Rumors

Plans

• Delta Corp Holdings, an asset-light third-party logistics provider, plans to list on Nasdaq via a reverse merger with Kaival Brands ($KAVL), an e-cigarette company. — PR

• SPAC Breeze Holdings (OTC: $BRZH) announced it would merge with Taiwan-based biotech, YD Biopharma, at a $647M pre-money equity valuation. — PR / IP

• SPAC Deal Terminations:

  • Invest Europe I ($IVCB) & Zacco Holdings

  • Everest Consolidator ($MNTN) & Unifund Financial Technologies (disputed termination)

Rumors

• Hinge Health plans to file confidential IPO paperwork in the coming weeks and hired Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Bank of America to underwrite the IPO that could take place in early 2025. — BI

• Consumer fintech Chime Financial hired Morgan Stanley to lead its potential 2025 IPO. — BB

• MNTN, a smart TV advertising software firm backed by BlackRock and Fidelity that counts Ryan Reynolds as its ‘Chief Creative Officer’, hired Morgan Stanley to lead a possible 2025 IPO. — BB

• Cerebras, which previously filed confidential IPO paperwork with the SEC, is planning to file its public S-1 for an IPO that could raise up to $1 billion and value the company at $7 billion to $8 billion. The roadshow could launch in the coming weeks. Citigroup is leading the IPO with Barclays underwriting as well. — BB

See the list of Planned IPOs and Rumored IPOs

See the SPAC Hub for all our SPAC coverage

Planned/ Rumored IPO Major Corporate News

• The group of lenders holding Northvolt’s $10 billion of debt was set to meet on Friday to decide the course of action for the struggling Swedish EV battery maker. The company, previously a strong IPO candidate, announced a plan earlier in the week to cut 20% to 25% of its workforce. — BB

New IPO Filings

• SPACs: Charlton Aria Acq. Corp, Jackson Acq. Corp

• Others: Leizig Thermal Management (China), Intercont Limited (Hong Kong), WF Holding (Malaysia)

See all of the latest IPO Filings

IPO Candidates

IPO Candidate/ Prominent Startup News

• Wiz, the cybersecurity startup that rejected Google’s $23 billion acquisition proposal, is in talks to let existing shareholders sell between $500M and $700M of shares at up to a $20 billion valuation. — BB

• Fanatics is in discussions to facilitate the sale of employee shares at a discounted valuation of $25 billion. — BB

• Apple is no longer in talks to participate in an OpenAI funding round that could raise as much as $6.5 billion, which is expected to close this week. Microsoft and Nvidia are also in talks to invest in the round. — WSJ

Equity Raises

Prominent Startups, Series D+, and Private Equity Rounds:

• EGYM, a connected gym equipment company, raised $200M in its Series G round from L Catterton and Meritech. The round values the company at $1.2 billion. — TechCrunch

• Macquarie acquired a minority stake, for as much as $1.73 billion, in D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, a renewable energy developer. — BB

• Whatfix, a digital adoption platform for enterprises, raised a $125M Series E led by Warburg Pincus with participation from its existing investor, SoftBank. — PR

• AI medical imaging company Qure.ai, raised $65M in its Series D from investors including Merck and Lightspeed Venture Partners. — PR

• Route 92 Medical, a neurovascular medical device maker, raised $50M in a Series F extension. — PR

• Zap Energy, a compact fusion reactor company, raised $130M in a funding round led by Soros Fund Management and including participation from existing investors Chevron and Shell. — TechCrunch

See our list of IPO Candidates and the most recent prominent rounds here.

Public M&A

Public M&A Activity

Announcements

• Smartsheet ($SMAR) agreed to be acquired by Blackstone for $56.50 per share in cash or a transaction value of appx. $8.4 billion. — PR / Reuters

• Markforged ($MKFG) announced it will be acquired by Nano Dimension in an all-cash transaction for $5.00 per share or an aggregate total consideration of $115M. — PR

• TowneBank ($TOWN) will acquire Village Bank and Trust Financial Corp. ($VBFC) for $80.25 per share in cash or an aggregate transaction value of $120M. — PR

Closings

• Doma (DOMA) closed its acquisition by Title Resources Group (TRG). — PR

• Bain Capital’s acquisition of Powerschool Holdings ($PWSC) for $22.80 per share in cash is expected to close on Tues, Oct 1.

Public M&A News

Talks / Rumors and Other Potential Deals

• Liberty Broadband ($LBRDA) submitted a counterproposal to Charter's ($CHTR) initial offer to merge the two companies in an all-stock transaction. CHTR’s initial offer carried an exchange ratio of 0.228 CHTR shares per LBRDA share, with the counter increasing that to 0.29 CHTR shares per LBRDA share. John Malone holds a 49% voting stake in LBRDA, which in turn holds a 26% interest in CHTR. — PR / BB

• Danone North America submitted a proposal to acquire Lifeway Foods ($LWAY) by purchasing all of the shares it doesn’t already own for $25.00 per share in cash. — SF

• Sodexo, a French catering firm, is considering an acquisition of US rival Aramark ($ARMK) as it seeks growth overseas. — BB

• PayMate India entered into a binding term sheet to acquire DigiAsia ($FAAS) at a proposed enterprise valuation of $400M. — PR

• Target Hospitality ($TH) announced it disbanded its special committee which was formed to evaluate TDR Capital’s (affiliate Arrow Holdings) unsolicited non-binding offer to acquire the company for $10.80 per share. No new formal offers were received, and TDR/ Arrow did not reaffirm its offer. — PR

• Blue Hill Advisors increased their cash offer to acquire Territorial Bancorp ($TBNK) from $12.00 per share to $12.50 per share. In April, TBNK executed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Hope Bancorp ($HOPE) in an all-stock deal. — PR

Deal Coverage and Updates

• Vista Outdoor ($VSTO) postponed its shareholder meeting to vote on the acquisition of its Kinetic Group division by CSG after Gates Capital, an appx. 10% owner of VSTO, announced it would be voting against the current proposal. Gates encouraged VSTO to seek an all-cash offer for the entire company. VSTO advised it is continuing to engage with CSG and MNC Capital regarding the possible sale of its outdoor products division, Revelyst. — PR / Reuters

Quick break to introduce ListingTrack.io!

Our new platform, ListingTrack.io, is now live! It is a follow-up to our former site, SPAC Track. ListingTrack features a radically improved user experience and access to a significantly broader dataset covering public listing events, including IPOs, SPACs, Spinoffs, and pre-IPO companies. There is also much more coverage in the pipeline, including Public M&A.

Here's a quick rundown of the site's coverage: Our Listing Hub covers all initial public listings (IPOs, Spinoffs, de-SPACs, and more) and delistings. The IPO Hub drills into IPOs and is the hub for our pre-IPO coverage. The SPAC Hub is the new and improved home for SPAC Track’s SPAC and De-SPAC data.

We plan to ship new updates to ListingTrack constantly and will highlight our frequent website updates in this newsletter section going forward.

Activism, Shorts, & Other Special Situations

Activism, Investor Disputes & Shorts

Activism/ Disputes

• Bitfarms reached a settlement with Riot Platforms, which owns appx 20% of its stock, after Riot launched a dispute regarding the company's governance in April. Bitfarms is seeking shareholder approval for its pending acquisition of Stronghold Digital Mining. — Reuters

• Activist investor Jana Partners, which is pushing cybersecurity software provider Rapid7 ($RPD) to pursue a sale, increased its stake in the company to 13% in economic voting interest. — BB

• Elliott continued its activist campaign against Southwest Airlines ($LUV), calling again for the company to oust its CEO, Bob Jordan. — PR

• Toyota ($TM) distanced itself from some of its LGBTQ initiatives and said it doesn’t have a quota system to boost diversity among its suppliers after a social media attack from anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck. — BB

Shorts

• Super Micro Computer ($SMCI) is the target of an early-stage investigation by the Justice Department in connection with a former employee’s whistleblower lawsuit. The suit was filed in April against the company and its CEO, alleging accounting violations. The probe comes after activist short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published a report targeting the company. — WSJ

• Short seller Blue Orca Capital issued a report targeting Sun Communities ($SUI), $16 billion manufactured home and RV REIT, alleging ‘an egregious mess of conflicts of interest and dubious executive behavior which we believe manipulates critical financial disclosures.’ — Blue Orca

• Grizzly Research published a short report targeting Qifu Technology ($QFIN), a financial services company in China, titled 'We Believe Qifu is a China Hustle Stock with Outright Fake Financials, Fraudulent Backers, and an Imploding Business’ — Grizzly

Separations, Restructurings, and Other Special Sits

• Sanofi has received separate binding offers for its consumer health division from PE firms CD&R and PAI that could value the unit at €15 billion ($16.7 billion) or more. Sanofi is likely to make a final decision in the coming days and could also decide to pursue a spinoff instead. — BB

• Apollo has indicated in recent days that it would be willing to make an equity-like investment in Intel ($INTC) of as much as $5 billion. — BB

• Intel ($INTC) rejected an approach from Arm Holdings ($ARM) to explore a potential purchase of Intel's product division. — BB

• DirecTV, owned by AT&T and TPG, is in advanced talks to merge with Dish, which is owned by Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar Group. — BB

Bankruptcies/ Delistings

• Vertex Energy ($VTNR), a Houston-based oil refiner, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. — BB

• SunPower ($SPWRQ) received bankruptcy court approval to sell its solar power business to winning bidder Complete Solaria ($CSLR) for $45M. — BB

• Presto's ($PRST) senior lender, Metropolitan, is running a sale process for the company's business and assets, with the existing Presto shares to be canceled worthless and the company wound up. — PR

• Others downlisted to OTC:

  • Telesis Bio ($TBIO), African Agriculture($AAGR), A SPAC II Acquisition Corp. (ASCB —> $ASCBF)

Click here to view the Delisted & Downlisted companies that launched their initial public listings in 2020.

Thanks for reading,

The team at ListingTrack

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Market Data and Coverage: All market data presented is based on the stock prices at the close of the previous trading day. We cover the US market only at this time.
Abbreviations: PR: Press Release, SF: Company SEC filing, IP: Investor Presentation, BB: Bloomberg.

DISCLAIMER: The information provided in this newsletter is for your convenience only and is not intended to be treated as financial, investment, tax, or other advice. ListingTrack and its parent, CommonFi, do not make any guarantees, representations, or warranties as to, and shall have no liability for, the timeliness, truthfulness, sequence, quality, completeness, or accuracy of any of the information or data provided in this newsletter or on the ListingTrack website.