Everyone likes to look back at the past year for notable news events, songs, movies, books, and the like, but I thought I would give an update on IPO auctions in the U.S.  As I am editing my Google article, which hopefully will be forthcoming soon, I have to update my prediction, made last summer, that the enduring legacy of the Google auction is that it lent credibility to the idea that an online IPO was a viable option.  The numbers seem to have borne out that prediction so far.

Prior to Google's April 2004 announcement that it would conduct an Internet auction, W.R. Hambrecht + Co. had taken just ten firms public using its OpenIPO platform since 1999.  Averaging just two IPOs a year, the alternate IPO mechanism could not be described as taking the world by storm.  Since April 2004, six firms have conducted OpenIPO auctions, and one other firm, Traffic.com, is currently conducting its auction.  (Google's auction, because of its unique structure, did not use the OpenIPO platform and is not counted here.  The year 2005 saw five IPO auctions:  Dover Saddlery, Inc., Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., CryoCor, Inc., Morningstar, Inc., and BofI Holding, Inc. 

Obviously, during some of the years that few firms conducted IPO auctions, the market also saw fewer IPOs overall, but I sense an upward trend following the Google auction.

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