Bats IPO on Tap Again After 4-Year Delay

There was only one initial public offering (IPO) on last week’s calendar, and miracle of miracles, it was completed. The not so good news is that it sold far below its expected price range and insiders bought about 64% of the shares on offer.

Aeglea Biotherapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: AGLE) sold 50 million shares at $10 per share raising $50 million. Shares closed down 2.3% on the day of the IPO, but closed the week up 20%.

Through the week ending March 24th, IPO ETF manager Renaissance Capital reported that 9 IPOs have priced in the U.S. so far this year, down about 76% from a year ago. Total proceeds raised through last week equaled $700 million, down more than 87% compared with the same period in 2015. Of the 9 IPOs that have gone off this year, all have come from the healthcare 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.

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There is just one IPO on the calendar for the coming week, but it is one that will generate more than the usual amount of interest.

Bats Global Markets Inc. operates securities exchanges and other electronic markets worldwide. The company plans to offer 11.2 million shares in an expected price range of $17 to $19 to raise about $202 million at an implied market cap of $1.72 billion. The company will receive no proceeds from the IPO because all shares are being sold by current shareholders. Joint bookrunners for the offering are Morgan Stanley, Citi, BofA/Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan. Co-managers include Jefferies, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Nomura Securities, Rosenblatt Securities, and Sandler O’Neill.

Bats (an acronym from Better Alternative Trading System) Global had scheduled an IPO in 2012, but in an embarrassing moment the company’s exchange made some erroneous trades on the day the IPO was launched, forcing its cancellation. The company filed for this IPO in December.

Shares are expected to price Thursday and begin trading on the Bats Exchange (BZX) under the ticker symbol BATS.