What’s going on in the IPO market?
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: Hyatt Hotels launches an Initial Public Offering today. The company’s in pretty good shape. Though the hospitality business has suffered some in the recession. More importantly, though, IPOs haven’t been doing very well lately. And we asked Alisa Roth to take a closer look.
Alisa Roth: When the economy fell apart last year, companies pretty much stopped going public because nobody wanted to buy risky stocks. Now, the market is doing better. But investors are still too nervous to put their money into untested companies.
David Menlow: This is almost the equivalent of discretionary spending in the equities market.
David Menlow is president of IPOFinancial.com, a research firm.
Menlow: IPOs are suffering as a not an essential item, but as a luxury.
Some of the potentially riskiest IPOs are coming from private-equity firms.
David Snow follows private equity for a trade publication. He says they’re desperately looking for cash.
David Snow: Because of downturn they’ve held many of the investments for a long time and they’re very eager to sell them to large corporations or take them public.
Investors are worried that that eagerness could make private equity firms try to push IPOs that aren’t ready for the big time. Or mis-price them.
In New York, I’m Alisa Roth for Marketplace.
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