Despite the stock market turmoil of last week, one IPO defied all odds and priced. That IPO was the biotech Imara (NASDAQ: IMRA), who was joined by a healthcare focused Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). Imara priced on the global Nasdaq at its low-end estimated share price--$16 per share--and was able to raise $75.2 million from 4.7 million offered shares. Imara focuses on small molecule therapies for rare genetic disorders and is one of the smaller biotechs to enter public trading in 2020.
As for this week, the IPO market seems to be all but closed. Only one SPAC is planning to raise funds this week--a cannabis-focused black check company led by former Canopy Growth Corp. executives--but even their plans may be soiled by the market's continuous volatility. It appears that the IPO market may be shut down for the foreseeable future, or at least until investors become more comfortable with trading outside of gold and bonds again.
What has really scared up and coming IPOs away from the market is spreading investor pessimism towards the health of the domestic as well as global economy. Many roadshow companies like Warner Music, Madewell and the highly anticipated Airbnb had to halt their IPO plans mostly due to the relentless market volatility that has grabbed a hold on investors.
Amid the downturn, Renaissance Capital has noted that some recently public companies are "virus proof," meaning that they are still performing well in 2020, even after the market downturn. The firm noted companies like Passage Bio (NASDAQ: PASG), who has gained 23% since its February debut, as well as Slack (NYSE: WORK), Zoom Video (NASDAQ: ZM), and Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC), all of whom have greatly outperformed the broader market.
Renaissance offers an IPO ETF (NYSE: IPO) that tracks newly public companies' performance and notes that the fund returned 35% in 2019, meaning that the IPO market was going strong before the chaos. The ETF has been down around 20% in 2020, showing the underlying cracks in the recently stale IPO market.
Now it is time to wait for investor confidence to raise before the IPO market can resurrect. Two signs to look for are the VIX index dropping back below 30, signaling an end to constant volatility, and investment bankers becoming comfortable with traveling and attending roadshows again.