AppFolio Follows The Tech Trend And Files For IPO

Posted on May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 by admin

With two tech companies already set to launch their IPOs this week, another tech company has filed for an IPO, on Monday, May 18, 2015, with the SEC. AppFolio is most known for its web-based real estate property management system. That allows property managers to market and manage their portfolio. It includes accounting and property management functions with the ability to email work-orders, owner statements and resident communications. AppFolio are hoping to raise up to $100 million from this IPO. This IPO update is courtesy of Reuters Canada’s article, “Property management software maker AppFolio files for IPO“, with ab excerpt below.

AppFolio Inc, a maker of online property management software, filed with U.S. regulators on Monday for an initial public offering of common stock.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Pacific Crest Securities and William Blair are underwriters to the IPO.

The California-based company, whose investors include BV Capital and IGSB, provides software to small and medium-sized property managers and also offers legal software for small law firms under the brand “MyCase”.

AppFolio’s revenue rose 61 percent to $15.8 million for the quarter ended March 31. Net loss widened to $3.6 million from $1.2 million a year earlier.

To read more on the AppFolio IPO filing, click here.

5 IPOs To Launch This Week, Raising Close To $1 Billion

Posted on May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update profiles the 5 IPOs that are suppose to launch this week. With 2 IPOs being tech IPOs, the total for this week’s launches could be close to $1 billion. This update is courtesy of Renaissance Capital with excerpts below, highlighting each of the IPOs.

To get in on the IPO action yourself, find a brokerdealer to work with you and your needs.

Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS) is the leading provider of automated solutions for mortgage servicing and originations. Spun out of Fidelity National Finance (NYSE: FNF), Black Knight’s platform is used by the top 25 US mortgage servicers and 23 of the 25 largest US mortgage originators. The company’s dominant market position only encourages more customers to use its platform to mitigate mortgage risk.

Shopify (SHOP) is this week’s high-growth IPO. Backed by Bessemer, First Mark and Insight Venture Partners, the company has more than doubled revenue in each of the last 2 years, and sales rose 109% in the 1Q15. The SaaS provider targets 10 million small and medium businesses trying to manage online stores.

Baozun (BZUN) is the leading provider of brand e-commerce solutions in China with a 20% market share. Backed by Alibaba (BABA), Goldman Sachs and others, it operates in the $4 billion outsourced Chinese e-commerce solutions industry, which is expected to grow at about a 55% CAGR through 2017. It has attracted blue-chip customers like Nike and Microsoft while rapidly growing transaction volumes on its platform. However, investors should be conscious of Baozun’s relatively high customer concentration current lack of positive free cash flow.

Press Ganey (PGND) operates in the nearly-$4 billion market for improving patient satisfaction at health care organizations. LBO’d by Vestar Capital Partners in 2008 for a reported $675 million, the company benefits from incentives under the Affordable Care Act that drive health care to become more consumer-focused. Press Ganey has established itself as the market leader in surveying patients, but also pitches its ability to leverage patient data into an analytics platform that recommends hospital best practices.

Community Healthcare Trust (CHCT) is a newly-formed REIT targeting an initial portfolio of 35 health care-focused properties, including non-urban clinics and surgery centers. Aside from its relatively high initial yield of 7.5%, investors may be betting that CEO Timothy Wallace will leverage his public company experience as former co-founder and EVP of Healthcare Realty Trust (NYSE: HR).

To read Renaissance Capital’s complete coverage on this week’s IPO, click here

Broker Dealers Support Finra’s Move For Tougher Sanctions

Posted on May 15, 2015 by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog update profiles the broker dealer industry’s support for tougher sanctions for violations of the suitability rule. It is the industry’s hope that these tougher sanctions will elevate the industry. This brokerdealer.com blog update is courtesy of InvestmentNews’ article, “Brokers back regulator’s tough stance on suitability” by Mark Schoeff Jr., with an excerpt below.

Brokers endorsed a move by their regulator this week to toughen sanctions for violations of the suitability rule even as they acknowledged the standard leaves room for interpretation.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.(FINRA) on Tuesday revised its Sanctions Guidelines, which included raising its suggested suspensions to two years from one for brokers making unsuitable recommendations. It also strongly advises possible barring of brokers and expulsion of firms for fraudulent activity.

Cracking down on suitability violations will help clients, said Jeremy Gottlieb, owner of Gottlieb Wealth Management. In reviewing investments of clients transferring to his firm, he often sees evidence that their portfolios were built on the basis of product sales rather than what is in their best interest.

To continue reading about these tougher sanctions that are being backed broker dealers everywhere, click here.

BrokerDealers Get Bonus For Selling ETMFs from Eaton Vance NextShares

Posted on May 15, 2015 by admin

BrokerDealer.com update is courtesy of column from financial industry news curator MarketsMuse

MarketsMuse ETF update profiles a novel “payment-for-order-flow” approach on the part of ETF issuers who vie to whoo broker-dealers to promote their products to investors. Eaton Vance Corp. said Thursday it may help brokerages foot the bill to make its new type of actively managed exchange-traded products, called NextShares, available to their clients. Below extract is courtesy of Reuters’ Jessica Toonkel reporting

In an unprecedented move, Eaton Vance Corp will offer to help some brokerages pay their technology costs to make the fund company’s new breed of exchange-traded managed funds (ETMFs) available to investors, Tom Faust, Eaton’s chief executive officer, told Reuters this week. ETMFs are a hybrid between actively managed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

The Boston-based company also plans to pay brokerage firms a share of the revenues from the sale of the funds, which Faust hopes will be available by year-end.

BrokerDealer.com maintains the world’s largest database of broker-dealers and encompasses broker-dealer firms based in nearly 3 dozen countries

Big-name firms like Fidelity Investments and TD Ameritrade told Reuters they will not sell the funds until they see demand.

Helping to cover technology costs of distributors is new, but so are the Eaton Vance products, which require brokerages to take a new kind of order from investors, experts said.

“This is the first time I have ever heard of a firm offering to pay some brokerage costs for a new product,” said Ben Johnson, an ETF analyst at Morningstar.

He said the cost of gearing up to sell the product has been a sticking point for brokers. However, a number of executives at brokerage firms and industry consultants told Reuters that questions about whether there will be investor demand, and how they will get compensated to sell the new products, are even bigger issues that could keep them from selling the funds even with the Eaton Vance offer on the table.

Faust said figuring out the economic incentives and getting the systems up and running is top of mind for Eaton Vance.

“The biggest challenge we see at this stage of the game is getting broker dealers,” Faust said. “If we are looking to launch before the end of the year, we need the broker dealers to start making systems changes and otherwise preparing themselves to offer this to clients.”

Eight outside fund managers, including Mario J. Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors Inc., have licensed the right to sell NextShares. But large broker-dealers have not yet indicated that they’re taking the steps to offer them to financial advisers.

Investors will need to be informed by broker-dealers of the unique qualities of the funds when they trade, and they will place exchange orders in a way that differs from stocks or ETFs.

For the full story, please visit MarketsMuse.com

The Exciting Week For IPOs Could Help IPO ETFs

Posted on May 14, 2015 by admin

The brokerdealer.com blog update has been profiling hot IPOs over the past few weeks as the US market has been on fire with IPOs after poor IPO performance at the beginning of the year. Some market experts believe that the week of IPOs that are still to come will help boost IPO ETFs like the Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO) and First Trust US IPO Index Fund (FPX). This brokerdealer.com blog update is courtesy of Zacks Equity Research article, “A Flurry of IPOs Might Lift IPO ETF“

The U.S. IPO space, which was subdued at the start of 2015, looks to be on fire this week. As per Renaissance Capital, as many as 14 companies are slated to go public this week. This makes the week starting from May 4 the ‘busiest week’ of 2015 so far, per 247wallst.com.

Investors should note that after a massive run last year, the IPO market cooled down considerably in the first quarter of 2015. Per Renaissance, 34 IPOs raised $5.4 billion in capital, making Q1 of 2015 the most inactive per IPO tally since 1Q of 2013. Also, the proceeds from

IPO were the least since 3Q of 2011. Only, the health care sector managed to tread water in the gloomy U.S. IPO market.
Rising rate worries, a strong greenback and later a moderation in U.S. growth have probably raised concerns over the space. However, with the Fed repeatedly hinting at a delayed rate hike, the space has now bucked up.

Renaissance Capital’s IPO schedule indicated that the following companies are making a public market debut this week. These are Tallgrass Energy GP LP, Adaptimmune Therapeutics, International Market Centers, Commercial Credit, Bojangles, Collegium Pharmaceutical, aTyr Pharma, CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, Klox Technologies, MultiVir, Gelesis, Anterios, HTG Molecular Diagnostics and OpGen.

To get in on any of these IPOs that are about to launch find a brokerdealer here.

To continue reading about upcoming IPOs and the effective they will have an IPO ETFs, click here.