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IPOs roar back to life
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December 1, 1998: 3:53 p.m. ET
Led by Internet sector, companies are returning to once-moribund market
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - For John Fitzgibbon, an avid market watcher, few events in the recent annals of initial public offerings surpassed the $29.4 million launch of Earthweb for sheer jaw-dropping spectacle.
"It was like the 1812 Overture, with the cannon fire in the background," said Fitzgibbon, the editor of IPO Reporter, recalling the boom that sounded across U.S. markets the day the small Internet service went public amid heaps of hoopla on Nov. 11.
By the end of that fateful Veterans Day trading session, Earthweb (EWBX) soared to a premium of 247 percent, vaulting it to second place in all-time IPO first-day gains, just behind Broadcast.com's (BCST) 248 percent jump in mid-July. (Two days later, theGlobe.com would surge 605 percent in its first session.)
But while theGlobe.com (TGLO) impressed with its world-beating numbers, analysts say it was the New York-based Earthweb that really helped to reignite a moribund IPO market, which had slowed to a virtual crawl in the late summer and early autumn on the heels of a discomfiting Dow slide.
After averaging 44 deals a month from January through July, IPOs slowed to 19 in August -- the month Russia defaulted on its debt -- and sank to three offerings in September and five in October.
Turning the clock back
Not since March and April of 1980 -- when a paltry three and six companies, respectively, went public -- had the IPO market experienced such doldrums. "We turned the clock all the way back to ancient history," Fitzgibbon said.
What a difference a couple of months can make. With the stock market showing vibrancy for the first time since the dog days of summer, a larger variety of companies -- beyond an elite clique of big-ticket Internet hopefuls -- is sallying forth into the IPO arena with a strike-while-the-iron's-hot bravura.
Suddenly, an IPO calendar recently marked by endless deferrals and delays is crammed, as companies ranging from Chinese restaurants to cookware retailers angle to go public.
To be fair, the technology-laden Nasdaq market, already home to about 75 percent of IPOs, still is getting a relatively larger chunk of the new-offering action.
Two of the hottest deals expected this week are, in fact, Internet-related: TicketMaster Online-CitySearch is expected to launch a 7 million-share IPO at $8 to $10 a share. But if precedent holds, the offering is likely to increase by the time the shares go public.
uBid, an Internet auction company, is being bandied about as possibly the next eBay. uBid's IPO is tentatively set for either this week or next. Market strategists say uBid will roll out 1.5 million to 3 million shares, at $13 to $15 a share.
E Tek Dynamics, a maker of fiber-optic equipment, revised its planned offering to 5 million shares at $8 to $10 each from an initial 6 million shares at $9 to $11 apiece.
Restaurants and cookware retailers
Among the non-Internet IPOs coming to market shortly are P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc., a Chinese restaurant that analysts say has been losing money and wants to reverse its fortunes by going public, and Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium Inc., a cookware retailer that emerged from bankruptcy in August.
Fitzgibbon said many of the forthcoming IPOs are small-cap deals that are being organized by small-cap underwriters. For many of them, he said, the prospect of finally launching their offerings is too appealing to pass up.
"This time last month, this was only a dream," he said.
Analysts note that IPOs, like markets themselves, tend to eschew predictable patterns. But what is different this month, they say, is that companies lacking the superstar cachet attached to Internet issues are finding a comfort zone again where none existed before in the IPO market.
Usually, analysts say, IPO markets take about two months to revive coming off a major market decline. That turnaround began in November, when IPO traffic nearly quadrupled from the previous month, and seems likely to continue through the end of the year. 
-- by staff writer Douglas Herbert, with additional material from wire reports
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