US ECM looks toward future
ECM reflects trends in the broader economy, in good times and bad. Last week saw a continued ramp in investor speculation with a trio of raises by uranium miners, an AI power IPO and a flood insurance fintech IPO.
Throw in six SPAC IPO pricings and a flurry of traditional miners out of Canada, and the full spectrum of the direction of the North American economy becomes clearer.
Uranium Energy, a US uranium miner that recently has purchased yellow cake on the open market and has plans to begin enriching, highlighted the on-risk sentiment by raising US$203.8m from a block sale of stock launched and priced ahead of the US market open on Friday.
The 15.5m Uranium Energy primary shares Goldman Sachs offloaded at US$13.15, a 3.9% discount to the Thursday close, represented just one day's trading volume.
Goldman Sachs backed up that power play earlier in the week as sole books on an upsized US$600m six-year CB for Energy Fuels, funding the largest US standalone uranium miner’s expansion into rare earth minerals. This financing followed a Q2 that saw Energy Fuels pump out US$3.9m in sales.
Canadian uranium miner NexGen Energy funded a pre-development project in Saskatchewan by raising US$682m-equivalent from a C$400m bought deal concurrent with a A$600m Australian ADR placement.
Canadian gold miners Collective Mining and Skeena Resources tapped into investor appetite for the white metal by both raising C$125m through bought-deal financings priced overnight.
Rick Perry’s Fermi advanced its vision of off-grid power generation for AI by raising an upsized US$682.5m from a Nasdaq/LSE IPO. That stock marched to close Thursday trading at US$28.78, 37% above the US$21 IPO pricing.
Neptune Insurance, the flood insurance fintech backed by Bregal Sagemount, closed the week at US$28.45, 42.3% above offer, following pricing of its US$368.4m all-secondary IPO.
In the largest new SPAC pricing of the week, Bain Capital secured US$400m through an IPO of Bain Capital GSS, marking the PE firm’s return despite a chequered history that saw it liquidate one prior SPAC (BCLS Acquisition) and withdraw IPO documents for another (BCC Investment).
Serial SPAC sponsor Betsy Cohen is shifting her attention to bitcoin after raising US$220m from an IPO of BTC Development.
Excluding the SPAC new issues and the international deals, operating companies raised US$2.5bn across ECM this week, led by the Fermi/Neptune IPOs and the US$172.2m IPO of Tennessee community bank Commercial Bancgroup.
Led by Hovde Group, Commercial Bancgroup priced on Wednesday night, after the US government closure.
Washing machine maker Alliance Laundry and Apollo Group-backed Phoenix Education Partners are slated to price their IPOs on Wednesday October 8 after having gained pre-effectiveness from the SEC.