BrokerDealers & Bankers Cashing In on IPO Boom

Posted on by admin

Below Brokerdealer.com blog news extract courtesy of FT.com

Investment banks are cashing in on a boom in global stock market listings this year amid a resurgence of initial public offerings from Europe and Asia. Worldwide IPO fees of $3.15bn for the year to date are up nearly two-thirds from the same period a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting.

The amount garnered in the Americas has risen slightly from $1.25bn to $1.31bn. Fees from these deals in the Asia-Pacific region jumped by almost three times to $853m, and more than doubled in Europe.

IPOs have been a bright spot for banks as volatility in secondary markets vanished, putting pressure on trading revenues. The CBOE Vix equity volatility index this month fell to a seven-year low.

The listings market in the US has been strong for a few years, experiencing a pullback this spring after overheating at the start of the year. Stabilisation in southern Europe has served as a catalyst for a rebound in deals throughout the continent, while Asia has been choppy.

“When you see sovereign yields in Greece and Spain fall, it allows people to put good values on any solid European company that may want to go public,” said Dan Simkowitz, co-head of global capital markets at Morgan Stanley.

The calendar is not necessarily dominated by southern Europe, but influenced by the “healing”, he said.

The IPO revival in Asia and Europe has clipped the global market share of fees for top earning banks as those with a strong regional presence in rebounding areas, such as UBS in Asia, move up the charts.

Sam Kendall, global head of equity capital markets at UBS, said: “Investors in Asia’s market are not just buying anything. The deals have to be priced sensibly, structured properly and have a good equity story. It’s the same thing all over the world.”

In Europe, the rush to list has been led by London where smaller banks such as Zeus Capital and Numis have used strong local profiles to gain market share against much larger competitors.  For the complete story, please visit FT.com

Its a Beautiful World; Paris-based Worldline IPO

Posted on by admin

Below Brokerdealer.com/blog news extract courtesy of FT.com and reporter Andy Sharman

Worldline, the online payments company being spun out of French multinational Atos, has launched its initial public offering at a range that values the company at up to €2.4bn, including debt.The Parisian listing is part of a plan to take advantage of the shift to digital and mobile that has increased the popularity of online payments – though cashless transactions have not caught on as rapidly as some had hoped.

Gilles Grapinet, Worldline chief executive, said the IPO came at “a unique moment of opportunity for growth” with the convergence of three trends – “the digital and mobile revolution, the changes in the regulatory framework for the European payments sector and the shift in strategy by many banks following the financial crisis”.

Specifically, he was referring to banks’ willingness to invest in technology that lowers the costs of transactions.
Worldline, which has revenues of more than €1bn and employs 7,200, specialises in mobile payments for retailers and transport companies, payment processing software for banks and other cashless systems, such as loyalty cards, for hoteliers.
Worldline plans to raise €610m in its IPO, more than half of which will be used to repay a loan to the parent company. Atos plans to keep a controlling stake.The offering has been priced at an indicative range of between €16.40 and €20 a share, implying an enterprise value of €2bn to €2.4bn. Worldline, whose headquarters are in the Parisian suburb of Bezons, filed its document de base – the first step towards flotation – with French regulators at the start of May.
Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are acting as global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners alongside Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Société Générale. Rothschild is financial adviser to the company.

Alibaba’s Silence Isn’t Golden For its I.P.O

Posted on by admin

Brokerdealer.com blog extract below courtesy of June 10 WSJ Aaron Back reporting.

Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba. European Pressphoto Agency

Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba. European Pressphoto Agency

As Alibaba Group prepares for the bright lights of Broadway, it is keeping potential investors in the dark. There is yet time to illuminate things.

The Chinese online-shopping giant is likely to release an updated regulatory filing soon in preparation for an initial public offering in New York, expected to raise more than $20 billion. A pre-IPO document released in May left gaping holes around Alibaba’s business and who controls it.

It seems a bare minimum to identify the more than two dozen partners who will effectively control Alibaba via special rights to appoint a majority of board members. The nature of these partners’ business relationships with Alibaba also should be known. It was a big oversight that the initial filing omitted this information. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the names of the partners will be included in the updated filing.

In addition, investors have complained that Alibaba didn’t break down results for its two moneymaking retail sites, Taobao and Tmall. Last month’s filing emphasized the importance of the Tmall business in the mix of the two. Faster Tmall growth means more revenue per item shipped. A higher Tmall contribution also would bode well for the transition to mobile devices, where it is harder to sell ads.

BrokerDealers and Billionaire Clients: Who are YOU Goin’ To Call?

Posted on by admin

If you’re an aspiring billionaire, or the real thing, it won’t surprise you to know there is lots of competition among brokerdealers for your big account. Find the right broker-dealer, and the right individual broker who can be trusted to provide good guidance, and you can take two items off of your check list.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.Thorne Perkin, a wealth adviser, said the young tech group was not to be ignored.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.Thorne Perkin, a wealth adviser, said the young tech group was not to be ignored.

Searching for a broker to manage your bucks (or yen, or euros, or maybe your bitcoin fortune)??.. Today’s article from the NYT Dealbook is worth your read….here are some extracts:

When Microsoft went public in 1986, its chief executive and largest shareholder, Bill Gates, wound up with a broker at Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that had led the company’s initial public offering.

The San Francisco broker, William Hobi, was so excited to have Mr. Gates as a client that he put a vanity license plate on his Porsche for a few years with the letters MSFT, the trading symbol for the company’s stock.

Times may have changed, but technology billionaires still set the engines racing among Silicon Valley brokers. Social media I.P.O.s, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and acquisitions like Facebook’s planned $18 billion purchase of WhatsApp have created more than a dozen billionaires, by one count of Forbes magazine data.

Competition to handle their money is intense. “Every day I get a connection request from a wealth manager on LinkedIn,” said Michael Cagney, the founder and chief executive of Social Finance, or SoFi, an online student-loan platform in San Francisco that might go public in the next year or two. Mr. Cagney sold another financial software company, Finaplex, in 2007 and runs a hedge fund. Continue reading →

A Chinese Menu of Deals Drives Venture Capital Guru East; BrokerDealer.com spotlight

Posted on by admin

Investing in China and sourcing private equity, venture capital and deal opportunities is getting better every day.

BrokerDealer.com blog extract is courtesy of New York Times Dealbook

SHANGHAI – James W. Breyer, the venture capitalist who made a fortune with an early bet on Facebook, is putting some of his winnings to work in China, partnering with Beijing-based venture capital firm to invest in Chinese technology start-ups.

IDG Capital Partners said on Wednesday that Mr. Breyer, a longtime partner at Accel Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., would advise and invest alongside a $586 million IDG fund that closed June 3. The fund is expected to make early stage investments in Chinese technology, media and telecommunication companies.

The announcement comes as interest soars in Chinese technology companies after two years of frenzied deal-making, much of it involving China’s Internet giants: Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. Those three companies alone have spent more than $10 billion buying up start-ups and rivals during the last few years.

And with other technology highfliers here, including JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce company that recently raised $1.78 billion in its New York public listing, China has rapidly become a prime destination for the world’s biggest venture capital and private equity firms. Among the biggest and most active in China are Sequoia Capital, Qiming Ventures, SAIF Partners, IDG Capital Partners and Northern Light Venture Capital.