These Companies Made 2019 a Huge Year for IPOs

Beyond Meat Inc., the meat substitution company, has traded wildly since it went public on May 2. The stock rocketed up by 84% on the first day of trading. The shares are currently priced at around $80 per share but have been as high as $239 and as low as $45. The company makes plant-based beef and pork. There are rumors it will move into poultry.

Levi Strauss & Co. was founded in 1853 but went public (again) this year, on March 21. The clothing company traded publicly between 1971 and 1985 before being taken private by the Haas family, who are descendants of the founder. Its most recent earnings disappointed Wall Street.

Luckin Coffee Inc. is known as the Starbucks of China. Hedge fund buying has helped support its share price. The company has about 2,500 stores, up from around 2,400 at the time of the IPO in the first quarter. The company plans to double that in the next year. The company went public on May 17.

Luckin Coffee is one of the few major IPOs of 2019 that as of the end of December was trading near the top of its price range.

Envista Holdings Corp., a maker of dental products, was spun out of Danaher Corp in September. Danaher makes a variety of medical products. It agreed earlier this year to pay $21.3 billion to acquire GE’s Biopharma business. Shares were issued at $22 and traded recently at around $28.65 per share.

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. offers cloud-based security services. One of its primary benefits is that it runs on laptops, desktops, servers, and virtual machines. The stock has been buffeted by changing analysts’ calls about the company’s future. The company went public on June 12. It was embarrassed recently when there was a major typographical error in its earnings release that initially lowered shares. When the error was corrected, the stock rebounded.

Datadog went public on Sept. 19 and jumped 39% the first day of trading. The company provides a cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform for developers and IT operations teams. Revenue surged 88% to $96 million in the most recently reported quarter.

Zoom Video Communications Inc. shares are down 40% off their peak. The company went public on April 18. It operates in the highly competitive video conferencing sector. Its perceived advantage is that it operates on multiple devices, a feature most other products in the market do not offer.

Chewy allows people to order pet prescriptions online, a mundane but growing business. Like many of this year’s IPOs, the company is not yet profitable. The reception to the offering was good. Chewy went public on June 14 and jumped 59% on the first day of trading. Revenue rose 40% in the most recently reported quarter to $1.23 billion.

Tradeweb Markets Inc. operates electronic marketplaces for companies that trade fixed income products and derivatives. The company’s shares currently trade about 74% above the April IPO price of $27 a share even after an October secondary offering of more than 17 million shares priced at $42.

Peloton has recently received a great deal of publicity for what many considered a sexist TV ad. The company went public on Sept. 26 and quickly sold off. Pessimists believe its interactive stationary bike has too much competition. Its new treadmill may increase its customer base.

SmileDirectClub went public on Sept. 12. Recently, shares were down 60% from the IPO. The company offers products that allow people to straighten their own teeth (with the help of a dentist), for low prices. Recent earnings were abysmal.

Pinterest is among the larger social media plays in a field that includes public companies like Facebook and Twitter. Recent poor earnings have pushed Pinerest’s shares down to nearly the lowest level since the IPO on April 18.

Uber’s smaller rival went public on March 29. It faces similar challenges as Uber. Some cities want to regulate the service, including where and when it can operate. There has also been a push to give drivers benefits, which would sharply drive up costs for the companies.

Avantor Inc. makes specialty chemicals for a variety of industries, including biopharmaceuticals and advanced technologies. The company was founded in 1904 and claims all 10 top biotech firms, four of the five top semiconductor makers, and 19 of 20 top research universities in the United States and Europe as among its customers.

The ride-sharing service went public on May 10, and the stock promptly sold off. It took weeks to get back to its IPO price of $45. Founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, who was pushed out, has been an aggressive seller of shares recently.