[ad_1]
It was supposed to be the year when so many American tech darlings – Uber, Pinterest, Peloton – made the perfect landing and became public companies like Apple, Facebook and Amazon.
Then the policy is skewed.
The 2019 IPO pipeline is now doubly held back by two factors beyond its control: the government ended the first half of this year, which created a delay of several weeks in starting needy start-ups seeking advice from a closed SEC to handle a large workload. And half of the past year is marked by an economy that is showing signs of an impending recession, which means startups are running the ad early. So, there is the pinch.
All this has a good deal of irony, as many startups have delayed their public offering in search of this elusive and exceptional moment. Not 2016. Not 2017. Not 2018. Yes, plan on 2019. Has the perfect become the enemy of good?
Bankers and others advising potential stock market investors are worried that the government's 35-day shutdown, which ended on Friday, could cast a cloud over the first half of the year of listing. Nobody really knows what papers the SEC, with its skeletal staff, will pick up now that the government is reopening. (And maybe it'll close again in three weeks.)
It was thought, however, that there was an advantage in being at least at the top of the pile. So, some companies, such as PagerDuty, have submitted documents to the SEC, joining the queue in hopes of being among the first to receive comments on their files. May be.
The first few weeks of January are generally a popular time to try to confidentially launch the IPO process with the SEC. Some unfortunate people are now worried about the whole thing year ruined by January's backlash, with first-quarter registrations becoming second-quarter registrations, with second-quarter registrations becoming third-quarter registrations and suddenly, 2019 registrations becoming 2020 registrations.
"There are definitely guys who have pushed things back a quarter of a time," said a technical banker, who advises several upcoming IPOs.
And that does not mean a recession.
No company wants to go public when the stock market shows a lot of red numbers. While trying to predict a recession is as insane as trying to predict the end of a government shutdown, the idea is to put the company on the markets now before the final shutdown of the IPO counter.
Thus, those who plan IPO's describe new accelerated calendars in an attempt to beat time. Uber, for example, was initially planning an IPO in the second half of the year, but is now targeting a first semester enrollment. Lyft has confidentially filed and tries to beat Uber at the exits. And Pinterest, long time a flirt IPO, queries bankers to the list in the middle of this year. Palantir, a company that was never should be made public, would have made rumblings.
2020 registrations become 2019 registrations. Third-quarter registrations become second-quarter registrations. Second-quarter registrations become first-quarter registrations. (You see the problem now.)
There is a new race to go public, but the starting gate is locked. Until now.
Source link