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Dog days begin for IPOs
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July 11, 1999: 5:02 p.m. ET
Sluggish week is Internet-heavy, but few real standouts seen
By Staff Writer Robert Scott Martin
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - After last week's lackluster calendar of initial stock offerings, this week too promises to be sluggish for the IPO market with only a handful of companies coming to Wall Street's auction block
As trading volume decreases and the minds of many market players move away from their stock tickers toward summer vacations, the flow of fresh IPOs traditionally ebbs until investors snap back to attention in the fall.
Of the eight would-be debutantes left in the receiving line, three are holdovers from earlier in the year. Internet spoken-word provider Audible (ADBL) was originally set to go public late last month, while pharmaceutical data warehouse Provantage Health Services (PVHS) is a familiar contender in the IPO lists from as early as April. HealthGate Data (HGAT) provides medical news and information from such sources as the New England Journal of Medicine.
A fourth delayed offering originally set for this week, energy holding company Kinder Morgan, canceled its IPO late last Thursday after being bought out for about $505 million by competitor KN Energy (KNE). Kinder Morgan would have used its offering proceeds to tighten its hold over operating subsidiary Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (ENP).
Thin Net pickings remain
The dearth of IPOs this week could help those companies on the calendar by decreasing competition for investors' favor. Should they so choose, IPO mavens left in the market will be able to lavish extra research and attention on each and every deal on the plate over the next few days - for better or worse.
For those who still harbor an Internet sweet tooth, most of the hopefuls coming to the market are on the Webby side. In addition to Audible and HealthGate, four Net-related firms are set to go public, including two digital-subscriber line (DSL) firms, a Net messaging firm, and a Web information provider.
Of the two DSL-oriented firms, Paradyne (PDYN) is by far the largest, with $198 million in revenue last year. Efficient Networks (EFNT) brought in a relatively tiny $3 million, and is more tightly specialized - rather than build or maintain its own high-bandwidth data networks, Efficient provides service solutions and other auxiliary technology for existing networks.
Messaging firm TIBCO Software (TIBX) sells Web-based communications software to businesses looking to make their real-time customer relations and internal information networks more efficient.
On the information side, National Information Consortium (EGOV) is a "federal portal" of sorts, centralizing information and official forms from a multitude of U.S. government Web sites. The company brought in $28 million last year, largely from providing Web services to government agencies.
And the rest…
Rounding out the week's calendar, digital streaming firm Ravisent Technologies (RVST), while not a pure Internet play, partakes in an allied technological field. The company makes software that media companies use to create materials on digital versatile disk (DVD) and other electronic media formats. As the long-anticipated "Internet convergence" of broadcast, cable and recorded media looms, companies like Ravisent could play an increasingly important role.
And companies like Insight Communications (ICCIA) will play in on the cable side of such a convergence. Insight is a major cable-television operator, the 10th-largest in the United States, with more than a million subscriber households. The company also provides cable-Internet services through its "Digital Gateway" program.
The smallest IPO of the week is BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN), a biotech firm that brought in just over a million dollars last year. BioMarin specializes in developing enzyme therapies for genetic disorders. 
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