US IPOs seek to raise $1.1 bn as market rebounds

Companies are seeking to raise at least $1.1 billion through US initial public offerings in the new week, the most since July, after a rebound in stocks lifted IPOs from Vera Bradley Inc to TAL Education Group.

First Wind Holdings Inc, the Boston-based developer and operator of wind energy projects backed by D E Shaw & Co, will offer as much as $312 million in shares in the week’s biggest deal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Shanghai-based online retailer Mecox Lane Ltd and Le Gaga Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-based vegetable producer, are selling shares after Chinese companies accounted for six of the ten biggest gains among US IPOs this year.

IPOs rallied this week, with five of six offerings posting gains of at least 13 per cent in their first day of trading, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed above its highest close since the month that New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc collapsed in 2008. US stocks have advanced in seven of the past eight weeks as companies from Citigroup Inc to Google Inc reported earnings that beat analysts’ estimates.

“The market is coming back quite strongly,” said Josef Schuster, the Chicago-based founder of IPOX Capital Management LLC, which oversees $3 billion.

First Wind’s IPO
First Wind, which operates projects selling power from New England to California, will offer 12 million Class A shares for $24 to $26 each on October 27, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The company will use the proceeds to help pay down debt and fund project development, the filing showed.

Credit Suisse Group AG of Zurich, New York-based Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt are leading the IPO. D E Shaw, the New York-based hedge-fund firm, will see its stake of Class A shares reduced to 52 per cent from 100 percent after the sale, the SEC filing showed. Mecox Lane is offering 11.7 million American depositary receipts at $8 to $10 each in an October 25 sale led by Credit Suisse and UBS AG.

Gene mapping
Pacific Biosciences of California Inc, the Menlo Park, California-based maker of gene-mapping systems, is seeking to raise $213 million in an offering led by JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley in New York on October 26, SEC filings show.

Vera Bradley, the Fort Wayne, Indiana-based maker of women’s handbags, and TAL Education, which offers after-school tutoring services in Beijing, led this week’s rally in IPOs, climbing more than 50 per cent in their first day of trading.