The recent market volatility has caused many potential IPO's to take a wait and see approach. In the earlier part of the year many names filed and then were able to go public, really at their discretion given that the markets were quite favorable. This has changed in recent weeks as the month of October was the worst month since 2012. As you may have noticed, the list of names that have launched has slowed and now that we are entering the Thanksgiving holiday week, the number of new IPO's on the calendar is down to 2.
As is typical for the Thanksgiving week, the list of IPO's tends to be small and names that are on the list tend to be outside the U.S. This week there are two names on the schedule and both of them happen to be based overseas. One of the names was on our list last week but decided to wait, and there is a good chance they push out to next week.
The first name on the list is TuanChe (NASDAQ: TC) which is an auto show organizer and operator in China. They are relatively new, starting back in 2010, but show $66 in sales since last October. They will be listing 3 million shares at a range of $7.50 -$ 9.50 in hopes of raising $26 million. If successful this would give them a valuation of around $700 million. Originally they had planned to offer 4 million shares.
The other name on the schedule this week is a carryover from last week. Taiwan Liposome Company (NASDAQ: TLC) is a biotech company working on lipid formulations for already approved drugs that focus on different eye diseases as well as general pain medications. The company will offer 5 million shares at $5.80 in hopes of raising $29 million.