Investing

2 Health Care IPOs on Calendar for Holiday-Shortened Week

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Depending on how you count these things, the month of March now has two or three initial public offerings (IPOs) to its credit, thanks to one blank-check company and two smallish health care offerings that made it out the door last week. All told, the three IPOs have added a little more than $225 million to 2016 IPO total for the year to date.

In the coming week, shortened by the Good Friday holiday, two more health care IPOs are on the calendar, one looking to raise $75 million and the other to $20 million. Even if both companies succeed, the number of IPOs in the first quarter of 2016 will total fewer than 10, the lowest total in 20 years, according to IPO ETF manager Renaissance Capital.

Hutchison China Meditech Ltd. (NASDAQ: HCM) raised $101 million after selling 6.1 million American depositary shares (ADSs) for $13.50 per ADS. Each ADS is equal to one-half of a common share. The ADSs closed at $13.50 on Friday after trading as high as $14.02 after Thursday’s IPO.

Senseonics Holdings Inc. (NYSEMKT: SENS) priced its IPO at $2.85, after revising the offering terms down from a prior range of $3.10 to $3.50 per share and reducing the number of shares sold from 18.2 million to 15.8 million. Nearly 40% of the shares were purchased by insiders.


Through the week ending March 18, IPO ETF manager Renaissance Capital reported that seven IPOs have priced in the United States so far this year, down about 76% from a year ago. Total proceeds raised through last week equaled $600 million, down nearly 87% compared with the same period in 2015. Of the seven IPOs that have gone off this year, all have come from the health care sector. Last year’s IPO total came in at $30 billion on 170 offerings. Renaissance Capital does not include “best efforts” or blank-check companies in its totals.

Tel-Aviv listed BioLight Life Sciences was also on last week’s but the offering has been delayed.

The other offering scheduled for last week was Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm engaged in the discovery and development of a novel class of therapeutics on its proprietary platform. It postponed its IPO citing poor market conditions.

In a special report issued last week, Renaissance Capital said that insider participation in 2016 IPOs has been as high as 65% to 70%. Here’s the company’s summary:

So far this year, five biotech IPOs have been able to get done in an otherwise inactive IPO market. It turns out that these IPOs have been completed with little involvement from public investors and to a greater degree than was stated in pre-IPO filings. Existing shareholders have provided significant support, removing at least 46% of shares from the tradable float based on post-IPO filings, more than double the percentage we have seen for biotech IPOs in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In some cases, investors get a heads up about this in the IPO prospectus, but often the extent of the insider support is not revealed until later. Even then, only certain investors are required to disclose their purchases, and many of these biotech IPOs had crossover investors that based on our analysis could have accounted for well over 50% of the capital raised. Public investors are left with erratic stock movements and little transparency into the actual deal dynamics. The limited float and lack of transparency is contributing to excessive post-IPO trading volatility. Investors should be cautious.

Corvus Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical firm focused on developing and commercializing novel immuno-oncology therapies. The company plans to offer 4.7 million shares in an expected price range of $15 to $17 to raise about $75 million at an implied market cap of $326.4 million. Insiders are reportedly planning to purchase up to 33% of the IPO shares. Joint bookrunners for the offering are Credit Suisse, Cowen and Guggenheim Securities. Co-managers are Cantor Fitzgerald and BTIG. Shares are scheduled to price Tuesday and begin trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CRVS.

Sensus Healthcare is a medical device maker specializing in treating non-melanoma skin cancers and other skin conditions with superficial radiation therapy. The company plans to offer 1.8 million shares in an IPO price range of $10 to $12 to raise $20 million at an implied market cap of $91.7 million. Joint bookrunners for the IPO are Joseph Gunnar and Feltl. Lead manager is Neidiger, Tucker, Bruner. Shares are scheduled to price Tuesday and begin trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SRTS.

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