Secondary Offerings Keep Coming (LIWA, PNW, NGLS, LYV, VRTS)

The floodgates of secondary offerings are not quite as open as they were two weeks ago.  Still, many secondary offerings are coming. Companies are raising cash and insiders are using strength to lock prices in on shares.  We have three deals priced this morning from Lihua International, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIWA), Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE: PNW), and Targa Resources Partners LP (NYSE: NGLS).  We also have two filings from Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV) and Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTS).

Lihua International, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIWA) is a Chinese developer, designer, manufacturer, marketer and distributor of alternatives to pure copper superfine and magnet wire, as well as copper rod products.  It priced a secondary offering of 3,726,708 shares at $8.05 per share. This one is actually trading up 9% at $8.80 on 440,000 shares right before the open.  This is less than a year old and its 52-week range is $5.20 to $12.69. Average volume is only 369,000 shares and this was over $9.00 a week ago.

Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (NYSE: PNW) priced a public secondary offering of 6,000,000 shares of common stock at $38.00 per share via Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Wells Fargo Securities.  Pinnacle is up 0.1% at $38.55 on already over 1 million shares before the open.  The 52-week range is $25.28 to $39.10.

Targa Resources Partners LP (NYSE: NGLS) priced a secondary public offering of 8,500,000 common units owned by Targa LP, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Targa Resources, Inc. at $27.50 per unit. The underwriters are Barclays Capital, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, UBS Investment Bank and Wells Fargo and they have a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,275,000 additional common units.  The Partnership will not receive any of the proceeds from this offering and the number of outstanding common units of the Partnership will remain unchanged. The units are down 3.5% at $27.43 right before the open and we have seen almost 1 million units traded.  The 52-week range is $9.00 to $28.87.

Then there are also two key shelf registrations.

Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: LYV) filed last night for the sale of up to 2,969,187 shares of common stock, with a listed value of close to $42.9 million.  This is for shares “issued or to be issued upon the exercise of certain outstanding equity awards held by current and former employees and directors of IAC/InterActiveCorp, HSN, Inc., Interval Leisure Group, Inc. and Tree.com, Inc. and certain former employees and a former director of Ticketmaster under the Amended and Restated Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. 2008 Stock and Annual Incentive Plan.”  SHares are largely unaffected as the stock is down only 0.8% at $15.47 on less than 30,000 shares before the open.

Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTS) has filed a shelf registration to raise up to $100 million through the sale of equity or debt, some of which may be for holders.

JON C. OGG