Holiday Candygram

Kris Tuttle -

We just added another 40 decks to our database, which brings our total new issues up to 219 for the year. The "IPO" market has evolved greatlymany are in the last few years and is now comprised of splits, spinoffs, cross-listings, and the usual regular-way IPO transactions.

This new diversity greatly without much sponsorship or investment interest. We're finding more "real companies" emerging from the wreckage of not just failed 2023 transactions but the larger pile of deals, including 2021 and 2022.

As soon as the books are closed in 2023, we will send our comprehensive review of every new issue broken down and sorted by different categories. We'll also include access to some spreadsheets so you can do your sorting and filtering.

After the "great interest rate reset" and the "great AI reset," we're contemplating another year of more diverse activity in 2024.

Here are a few things to expect:

  1. The best companies will still be able to come public and many are in the wings. Investors are watching for SpaceX/Starlink, Stripe, OpenAI, Lineage Logistics, Shein, Databricks, Fanatics, and Reddit, to name a few of the 40 in the sights of the tier 1 investment banks.
  2. Splits and spinoffs will continue to be significant. There were over 20 this year, and they tend to be bigger and higher quality companies. We already see around 20 in the pipeline for 2024, so it promises to be an even busier year for this category.
  3. SPAC IPOs keep coming. We had over 80 in 2023. Many have been duds, and a good portion will go out of business, but some of these companies are performing well as their stocks languish. The pace may slow down, but there will still be plenty of these in 2024.
  4. The Re-IPO will be with us in 2024 as private equity firms look for ways to get liquidity. Panera Bread is already being worked on.
  5. Some Investor Days are being used as a new "coming out story" for some companies to try to reposition themselves with investors. We may cover these "soft IPO" events in 2024, so you know them and have easy access to the decks.

January Betas

Right after our annual yearbook is published, we will launch a few new things in a "beta" mode in January. Our existing and new clients will be invited to sign up to test them and provide feedback.

  1. Whatsapp community: We already have this running in "alpha" mode with a handful of folks and so far, it seems to be the simplest form of online interaction and community. It will be opened up to all clients subject to strict guidelines and moderation to make it constructive and focused on information flow and research.
  2. Investor Day Decks: We have been capturing these for a while for our use but will offer a way to sign up to automatically get a text with a link when we add a new one. I don't think this will have broad appeal, but a few clients have asked for it, and it's not difficult for us to implement.
  3. Skull Sessions: These have been becoming more common in the investment community. The name comes from film/strategy days for athletic teams and offers a format for broader and deeper discussion of a new issue or sector.
  4. The Weekly Blotter: This is by far the most "experimental" offering in that it is a very raw collection of notes, thoughts, and comments that come from the bevy of curated sources reviewed regularly. I can only describe it as a kind of annotated idiosyncratic "feed" used at the front end of our process.

Existing members will get an email invite for #1 & #2 on January 2nd. Our first editions of #3 and #4 are planned for mid-January/early February.

2024 Internship Program

We skipped 2023 after overwhelming participation in our 2022 program. It was rewarding, and we learned a lot. We may offer something in 2024 but it will be much more involved and include longer-term development projects. That will make it much more valuable for those who complete it and more manageable for us. If done right, completion of the program can "open doors" to future opportunities in the industry.

Stay tuned for an announcement in Q1 if we have our ducks lined up to do it.

Best wishes to all our clients, colleagues, and supporters. We're excited and optimistic about entering our 14th year as an enterprise!