IPO Watch: China IPOs come out guns blazing while the Americans fire blanks

The new-issues calendar shows there are two games on Offering Boulevard. One is China-based IPOs. The other is American-based biopharmaceutical IPOs. The Chinese IPOs are exciting. The American IPOs are boring.

The IPO traffic of the past two weeks underscores the different games.

Linktone, a Shanghai-based provider of wireless value-added services to mobile phone users, was last week’s case in point.

Initially, the company filed to offer its IPOs at $10 to $12 per share. The deal was priced at $14 per share on Wednesday evening, March 3, and opened at $19 per share the next morning. The opening pop was up about 73 percent from the mid-point of its original filing range.

But Linktone wasn’t the only China-based company to go public last week. Two other Chinese IPOs were priced but each had a different story to tell.

Priced and traded
China Oriental Group, a Tianjin, China-based steel maker, priced its IPO at 2.75 Hong Kong dollars ($0.35) per share on Tuesday, March 2, 2004. The IPO closed its opening day at 3.40 Hong Kong dollars ($0.44) per share, up 23.6 percent from its initial offering price.

The managing underwriters for the China Oriental IPO were JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch. Don’t be upset if your friendly stockbroker didn’t call to offer you shares in this hot issue. There was a reason. And it was not the usual one: institutional buyers only! This time, the rationale was more complex.

The China Oriental Group IPO was not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC frowns on stockbrokers trying to sell unregistered stock to U.S. citizens.

Priced and not traded
Tom Online, a Beijing-based Internet provider of value-added multimedia products and services, was the other Chinese IPO priced last week.

On Friday, March 5, 2004, the company priced its IPO at $15.55 per share. The IPO is scheduled to start trading on Wednesday, March 10, 2004, about a week later.

This may seem strange, but it often is part of the Chinese underwriting procedure. With many China-based companies going public, the trading of their IPOs will not begin until all conditions contained in the underwriting agreement have been satisfied or waived. It is usually about four business days after the IPO’s pricing date.

The Tom Online IPO was an example. Its prospectus states:

“Business Day 1 (March 2): Hong Kong public offering commences
Business Day 4 (March 5): Hong Kong public offering closes
Business Day 4 (March 5): Pricing of global offering
Business Day 7 (March 10): Final allocation of shares announced
Business Day 7 (March 10): Trading of ADS (American Depositary Shares) commences on the Nasdaq National Market - New York time
Business Day 8 (March 11): Trading of ordinary shares commences on GEM (the Growth Enterprise Market of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong) - Hong Kong time”

The first Chinese IPO to have experienced a time delay between its pricing date and trading date was the China Southern Airlines offering. The deal was priced on July 25, 1997, at $30.66 per share, and started trading at $31 per share on July 30, 1997.

Prior to Tom Online, the last Chinese IPO that experienced a delay between pricing date and trading date was the China Life Insurance offering. The deal was priced on December 12, 2003, at $18.68 per share and started trading at $23.25 per share on December 17, 2003.

Since 1996, when China-based companies started offering their shares to U.S. investors, about 10 of the 31 Chinese IPOs were priced one week and traded the next week.

This week’s headliner is another China-based IPO. It is priced this week to trade the following week.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International, a Shanghai-based semiconductor foundry, plans to offer its IPO of 86.6 million American Depositary Shares at $15.50 to $17.50 each on Thursday, March 11. It will start trading on Wednesday, March 17 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Founded in April 2000, Semiconductor Manufacturing International has experienced soaring sales growth. The company turned profitable during the three months ended December 31, 2003.

For the year ended December 31, 2003, the company reported sales of $365.8 million, up 627 percent from sales of $50.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2002.

For the three months ended December 31, 2003, the company reported net income of $10.9 million (before dividends on preference shares of $2.5 million), up from a net loss of $41.8 million for the three months ended December 31, 2002.

The buzz
Aside from the numbers, consider this:

On February 11, 2004, the company filed for an IPO to raise $714 million.
On February 23, 2004, the company set proposed offering terms to raise $1.43 billion.
Chinese IPOs are hot. (For example, the three Chinese IPOs that were priced in the United States in 2003 and so far in 2004 have all finished their opening day’s trading above their offering prices with an average gain of 48.2 percent each.)

Enough said?

The boring
The best that American IPOs can do is to place two deals on this week’s new-issues calendar. Both are pharmaceutical deals: Peninsula Pharmaceuticals and Xcyte Therapies.

Alameda, California-based Peninsula Pharmaceuticals plans to offer 5.75 million shares at $12 to $14 each to raise $74.75 million. The deal is to be priced on Tuesday evening, March 9, to trade the following day.

Peninsula Pharmaceuticals is focusing on the development and commercialization of antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections.

Formed on February 6, 2001, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals has never generated any revenues.

As of December 31, 2003, the company had an accumulated deficit of $75.5 million.

Xcyte Therapies, a Seattle, Washington-based pharma plans to offer 4 million shares at $13 to $15 each to raise $56 million. The deal is to be price on Tuesday evening, March 9, to trade the next day.

The company’s previous attempt to go public in 2000 was withdrawn in December 2001.

Xcyte Therapies is developing a new class of therapeutic products to enhance the body’s natural immune response to treat cancer, infectious diseases, and other medical conditions associated with weakened immune systems.

For the year ending December 31, 2003, Xcyte Therapies reported total revenues of $170,000. (That’s less than its CEO’s annual compensation of $284,000 for 2003.) The company reported no revenues for the prior year.

As of December 31, 2003, Xcyte Therapies had an accumulated deficit of $86.6 million.

The buzz
There doesn’t appear to be much investor interest in either of the week’s pharmaceutical IPOs. Their aftermarket performance will depend upon the final pricing terms and stock market conditions.

But this sector does have a few items in the plus column:

In 2004, three pharmaceutical IPOs have been priced (Eyetech Pharmaceuticals, Corgentech, and Renovis.) Each did well in the aftermarket, scoring an average opening-day gain of 29.5 percent each.
The Dow Jones Pharmaceutical Index recently closed at 298.41, up 14.4 percent from its recent low of 260.86 set on November 11, 2003. By comparison, the Nasdaq Composite Index recently closed at 2,055.11, up 6.4 percent from its close of 1,930.75 on November 11, 2003.

For those investors who were willing to take a chance on the pharmaceutical IPOs this year, the experience wound up giving their portfolios a healthy shot in the arm.