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IPOs find strong demand
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December 3, 1998: 3:11 p.m. ET
Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch soars 243% to open at $48 amid IPO hunger
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - For investors flush from the eBay and EarthWeb bonanzas, it was Internet deja vu all over again Thursday as Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch rocketed about 243 percent from an initial public offering price of $14 to open at $48 per share.
The firm, a Web-based provider of live-event ticketing and an updated city guide, shot up as high as 56-3/4 before closing at 40-1/4 up 20-1/4 on the Nasdaq, where it trades under the ticker symbol (TMCS).
Ticketmaster originally planned to issue 7 million shares at $8 to $10. The fact that Nationsbanc Montgomery Securities, the company's lead underwriter, hiked the offering price attests to the hunger for new issues in a long-dormant IPO market. Ticketmaster raised $98 million from the IPO after initially pricing the shares late Wednesday.
Underwriters for several eagerly-awaited stock issues raised the values of their deals Thursday in a renewed sign of vibrancy for initial public offerings after months during which the market seemed all but moribund.
One of them, uBid Inc., an Internet auction company, raised the price range on its 1.58 million share IPO, to $14 to $15 a share from $13 to $14, lead underwriter Merrill Lynch said Thursday. (uBid, which many analysts have fingered as the next eBay, had earlier upped its price range from an original $12 to $14 amid euphoria for Internet stocks.)
And non-Internet IPOs are riding the coattails of their high-tech peers. P.F. Chang's China Bistro raised its offering volume to 4.15 million shares at $15 to $17 each from an original 3.45 million, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, the lead underwriter, said Thursday.
Meanwhile, eBay, the high-flying online auctioneer, skyrocketed to a high of 234-1/8 in November, a meteoric surge from its opening level of $18 back in September. On Thursday, eBay (EBAY) was up 1/8 at 203-1/8.
While last-minute upward tweaks in an IPO offering range are commonplace, Thursday's announcements carried symbolic weight, experts say, because they suggested robust demand for IPOs for the first time since the first half of the year, when the market averaged 44 new issues a month.
In August, IPOs fell to 19 issues on the heels of a major Russian debt default that shattered any illusions that U.S. markets could inoculate themselves indefinitely against the crisis in emerging markets.
IPOs sank to a paltry three issues in September and five in October. Since then, Internet stocks have dominated the IPO arena, though some analysts see a return to greater diversification as non-Internet companies vie to take their shares public before the market retrenches again.
Both uBid and P.F. Chang's are expected to debut publicly Friday. 
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