Viking, biggest IPO of the year, caps off a huge month for IPOs

The Viking Holdings Ltd. IPO, which starts trading today on the New York Stock Exchange, will be the biggest IPO of 2024 so far. The deal was upsized several times. Bermuda-based Viking was originally seeking to sell 44 million shares, then raised that to 53 million, finally settling on 64 million shares at $24, the high end of the price talk of $21-$25. At that price, the cruise line raised $1.54 billion. Viking is only the biggest in a month of standouts. Eighteen IPOs raised a combined $5.3 billion in April, according to Renaissance Capital, the busiest month for IPOs since November 2021. Nine of those deals raised $100 million or more, led by Viking. Still, it was not entirely a month for celebration. The stock market had a miserable April, with the S & P 500 down 4% and, unsurprisingly, many recent IPOs were down. The Renaissance Capital IPO ETF , a basket of roughly 60 companies that have gone public in the past two years, dropped 10% in April, but much of the decline in that ETF came from older IPOs such as Kenvue , Coinbase , and Roblox . All of the larger, most recent IPOs remain above their initial offering price. Recent IPOs (return since IPO) Astera Labs + 135.4% Loar Holdings + 86.9% Reddit + 30.7% UL Solutions + 25.4% Centuri + 17.9% Ibotta + 16.2% Rubrik + 0.1% “Despite some recent market headwinds, returns from recent IPOs and news from our shadow backlog give us optimism that the 2024 IPO market will continue to normalize heading into the summer,” Renaissance Capital said in a statement. The upsized demand for Viking, a consumer company, might give cheer to some of the other consumer brands out there waiting to go public. That list includes Chobani (yogurt and coffee), Liquid Death (water), Epic Games (video games), Harry’s (razor blades), Del Monte (canned fruit), and Panera Bread (restaurant chain).