The IPO Buzz: XPeng Charges Its IPO Battery

XPeng is the only name you need to know to navigate this week’s IPO Calendar. The Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer is set to go public in a $1.02 billion IPO late in the week. It’s rare for a $1 billion deal to be scheduled during the last few weeks of August, which typically mark the pre-Labor Day break for IPO bankers.

The successful IPO of Chinese EV maker Li Auto (LI) in late July is just one reason why investors are attracted to XPeng’s initial public offering. Li’s stock closed on Friday, Aug. 21^st, at $15.02, up 30.6 percent from its IPO price of $11.50. Li made its debut on NASDAQ on July 30^th.

Dominant EV maker Tesla (TSLA) and Chinese rival Nio (NIO) are also driving the interest (pun intended) in XPeng’s IPO.

Tesla’s stock is up 50 percent to almost $2,100 a share on the NASDAQ since the company announced its stock split on Aug. 11, giving Tesla a market valuation “now more than four times the combined market caps of Detroit’s Big 3,” as Paul Lamonica of CNN Business reported on Friday.

The American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) of Nio (NIO)  are up more than 240 percent this year, as Evelyn Cheng of CNBC reported on Friday. Nio plans to introduce a battery subscription plan (“battery-as-a-service”) that is expected to slash $10,000 off the price of one of its electric cars because a buyer would be able to buy an EV without the pricey battery pack – and lease the batteries instead. Nio went public almost two years ago. Its ADRs trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

Twelve IPOs were priced last week. That brought the total for August so far to 41 deals, making this the busiest August since 2013, when 20 IPOs made their market debuts, IPOScoop records show.

Of the 12 companies that went public last week, four were in the healthcare sector and eight were special-purpose acquisition companies, also known as SPACs or blank-check companies. The four healthcare IPOs all performed well, with Kymera Therapeutics (KYMR) scoring the biggest aftermarket gain in this group. Kymera closed on Friday, Aug. 21^st, at $33.26, up 66.3 percent from its IPO price of $20.

 Big Deal, Small IPO Menu

Let’s take a look at the extremely light IPO Calendar for this week, with the IPOs organized by pricing and trading date.  One deal, a SPAC, is a carryover from last week. (A small-cap deal, HiTek Global (HKIT), was priced in the second week of August; it’s expected to start trading on Tuesday, Aug. 25^th, on the NASDAQ.) This brings us back to XPeng and its $1 billion IPO. That’s where the action is this week.

Monday night pricing for Tuesday trading:

Burgundy Technology Acquisition (BTAQU proposed), based in Grand Cayman, is a tech-focused SPAC  whose chairman and co-CEO is Leo Apotheker,  a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and SAP SE (SAP), the German software company. Jim Mackey, co-CEO and CFO, was a managing director and the chairman of the software, technology investment banking group at Citigroup. He is also a former BlackBerry executive.

Burgundy Technology Acquisition expects to focus its acquisition search on European, Israeli and U.S. technology companies.

This is an IPO of 40 million units at $10 each to trade on the NASDAQ.

Wednesday night pricing for Thursday trading:

XPeng (XPEV proposed), based in Guangzhou, Guangdong, is one of China’s leading Smart EV companies. Founded in 2015, XPeng says it was created “with a vision to bring Smart EVs to Chinese consumers through innovation in autonomous driving, smart connectivity and core vehicle systems.” The company makes an SUV, called the G3, and a four-door sports sedan, known as the P7.

This is an IPO of 85 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) at $11 to $13 each to trade on the NYSE.

Worth noting:  For the last 12 months, XPeng reported revenue of $300.3 million and a net loss of $368.7 million.

(For more information about these companies, check the IPO profiles on IPOScoop.com .)

Week of Aug. 31^st

The IPO Calendar is as clear as the Caribbean waters for the week of Aug. 31^st. This is traditionally a vacation week for IPO bankers – a time for last-minute getaways through the Labor Day weekend. But the IPO market has broken free of its usual patterns this summer as bankers keep doing deals, making this August one of the busiest in years. So a few names might slip onto next week’s IPO Calendar and some more might line up for this week’s schedule after the SEC’s filing window opens again for business on Monday morning, Aug. 24^th.

Stay tuned.

Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums) is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.

Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions.