IPO Calendar 2013 Heats Up With These Five New Offerings

After a slow start to April with just one deal scheduled for pricing, the IPO calendar is getting crowded again in the second week of the month.

The equity markets remain fairly strong and recent IPOs have performed very well so there is strong institutional demand for equities in general, and new offerings specifically.

As long as the market is propped up by an aggressive U.S. Federal Reserve policy, stock prices should stay firm and that makes for favorable conditions for new equity offerings.

Here are five to keep on your radar.

Five New Companies for Your 2013 IPO Calendar

The largest offering of the week will come on April 10 when Taylor Morrison Home Corp. (NYSE: TMHC) is expected to price 23.8 million shares between $20 and $22 a share.

The completion of the offering will make the 75-year-old homebuilder one of the largest publicly traded homebuilders by revenue in the United States, according to the prospectus. The company builds home and develops communities across the United States and part of Canada. U.S. operations focus on Arizona, California, Florida and Texas while the Canadian division of the company operates primarily in the Toronto area.

The company has a large inventory of unsold land that it has accumulated since pricing collapsed in 2009. Taylor Morrison has more than 43,000 building lots in its inventory of which more than 21,000 have been purchased since the collapse.

Unlike many builders, Taylor has been profitable for the last three years. It is also seeing a strong uptick in new orders and closings. The company will be well positioned to benefit from a continued housing recovery in North America.

Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Zelman Partners are all joint mangers of the deal.

On Friday, April 12 we will see the initial offering of Evertec (NYSE: EVTC), a merchant acquisition and payment processing firm in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The company plans to offer 21 million shares between $18 and $20 each. The company processes more than 1.8 billion transactions a year and has over 104,000 point-of-sale terminals in its network. It also manages the payment network for more than 4,000 ATMs.

The company was originally part of Popular (POP), the large Puerto Rican-based bank, but the majority interest was sold to private equity investor Apollo Investment Management in 2010. Both Apollo and Popular will retain a significant interest in the company after the deal is completed.

The company is well positioned in the Latin American payment processing market which analysts expect to grow at a rate of 23% annually through at least 2015.

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are the mangers of the offering.

One sector that's performing especially well this year, and has delivered a few successful IPOs, is biotechnology. Two offerings on our IPO calendar next week are biotech companies - and investors should take note.

Chimerix Inc. (Nasdaq: CMRX) is a Durham, NC-based developer of antivirals and is offering 6.1 million shares between $13 and $15 a share on April 11.

The company makes oral antiviral agents and has one drug in phase three trials for CMX001 a drug for the prevention of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients. They also have an HIV drug, CMX157, in phase one trials.

Morgan Stanley and Cowan are the joint managers of the deal.

On the same day, Omthera Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: OMTH) will offer 5.8 million shares between $12 and $14 a share.

The company has one drug candidate right now that is a treatment for blood lipid abnormalities and cardiovascular disease.

BOA Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Leerink Swann are the mangers of the offering.

Finally, on Wednesday we will also see the pricing of 7.5 million shares of KNOT Offshore Partners (NYSE: KNOP) between $19 and $21 a share.

The company is being formed to own and operate shuttle tankers under long-term charter arrangements with major oil and gas concerns with offshore production.  Upon completion of the offering the company will own four shuttle tankers and have the right to purchase five additional shuttle tankers from the parent company.

According to the prospectus the partnership plans to pay an initial distribution of $.375 quarterly so the annualized yield will be 7.5% at the mid-range price.

BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Barclay are the mangers of the offering.

The IPO calendar is still strong and we should see additional offerings in the second half of April. For a list of eight IPOs to watch this year, check out our 2013 IPO Calendar Outlook.

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