The US IPO market has shifted from quiet to crowded within just a few weeks, with multiple companies planning to raise up to $17.3 billion this month alone, aiming to capitalize on the stock market's resilient performance. In the coming weeks, as firms hurry to complete their listings before the year's most anticipated market event—the record-breaking IPO of Elon Musk's SpaceX scheduled for June—billions of dollars are expected to be raised through public offerings.
According to Bob Doll, CEO of Crossmark Global Investments, any company seeking to attract IPO investors would likely choose to go public ahead of the SpaceX deal. Given ongoing geopolitical tensions involving Iran that could trigger market volatility, and the requirement for companies to update financial statements by late May, many IPO candidates appear convinced that the current window offers the optimal timing for listing.
Since the beginning of the month, U.S. IPO activity has already raised $5.4 billion, with newly listed companies once again delivering profits for investors and reigniting enthusiasm on Wall Street. Excluding special purpose acquisition companies and closed-end funds, the weighted average return for U.S. new listings this year has surged to 21%, up from 4.6% just a week earlier, significantly outperforming the S&P 500's 4.2% gain over the same period.
To enhance their chances of a successful offering, companies are adopting various strategies, including securing cornerstone investors, reducing the number of shares offered, and providing attractive discounts relative to their publicly traded peers. Dan Klausner, Head of U.S. Public Equity Advisory at Houlihan Lokey Inc., noted that market pricing has become more rational and restrained. Success tends to create a ripple effect—when one company prices reasonably and performs well post-listing, others become more appealing even with modest discounts.
This week, companies planning to go public aim to raise nearly $2 billion in total. Among them, X-Energy, a nuclear energy firm backed by Amazon, intends to raise $814 million. If these deals proceed smoothly, they will extend the busiest period since December of last year, when Medline Inc.’s major listing helped drive approximately $8.8 billion in fundraising.
Sumit Mukherjee, Head of Equity Capital Markets Intelligence at JPMorgan, stated that four IPOs are scheduled to price this week, following eight companies that publicly filed for listings last week. Against the backdrop of continued stock market strength, equity capital markets are expected to remain highly active in the near term.
A closed-end fund and hedge fund backed by billionaire Bill Ackman plan to raise up to $10 billion, with their IPO pricing on April 28 expected to serve as a key test of retail investor appetite. The performance of these upcoming IPOs will directly influence the listing plans of more than a dozen companies in the pipeline, including AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems and a data center acquisition vehicle owned by Blackstone. Each of these firms is expected to raise no less than $2 billion, potentially sustaining a multi-month surge in U.S. IPO activity ahead of SpaceX’s landmark offering.
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