SharkNinja and TeraWulf pace light week for US ECM
In what was expected to be a quiet week for ECM, issuance was light and frontloaded at the beginning of the week.
Overall, seven deals totalling US$1.8bn crossed the tape, led by the US$638m wall-crossed secondary selldown of SharkNinja and the US$850m raised by high-performance computing aspirant TeraWulf through the sale of a six-year convertible bond.
Evolent Health, a serial CB issuer, returned with an upsized US$145m five-year CB to repurchase a legacy bond that is deeply out of the money, and Michigan community bank Horizon Bancorp raised US$90m from a follow-on stock sale as part of a broader recapitalisation.
The above are all notable transactions, but unremarkable – apart from TeraWulf – in the broader context of ECM.
This same week last year saw only three deals that raised a combined US$1.2bn, the bulk of which came from Liberty Media’s US$950m M&A-related overnight block sale of stock.
Ahead of the US September 1 Labor Day, the last two weeks of August are seldom busy – the last week of August 2024 saw no deals.
Yet prep work is being done ahead of what figures to be a blockbuster September.
Gemini Space Station, the Winklevoss-backed crypto exchange, blockchain-based consumer fintech Figure Technology, Blackstone-backed industrial Legence and Black Rock Coffee are among the recent IPO filers ready to launch deals after Labor Day.