After a string of disappointing debuts, the IPO market showed signs of life Thursday, with shares of four newly public companies each shooting up more than 20 percent in their first day of trading.
All of the companies – Realogy, the owner of realty firms Century 21, Coldwell Banker and Corcoran Group; online stock photo provider Shutterstock; Kythera, a developer of shots to treat double chins; and Intercept Pharmaceuticals, which develops drugs for liver diseases – garnered strong demand from investors. The companies raised more money in their initial public stock offerings than they had predicted, an unusual occurrence over the past few months.
Thursday’s action bodes well for the IPO market overall, said Thomas Murphy, head of securities and capital markets for the law firm McDermott Will & Emery.
“Whether the market has full recovered, it’s too early to say,” Murphy said. “There’s always some kind of a tipping point where things start to be in vogue and start to get going again. I hope that’s what we’re seeing here.”
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