Gain IPO Only to Cover Expenses?

Fresh reports about the initial public offering of Gain point to a very modest IPO – the company is expected to sell only around 400K of shares, not 11 million as reported earlier. At midpoint, $14 a share, Gain Capital Holding will only raise $5 million – just covering the expenses of the IPO, led by Morgan Stanley.

Perhaps Gain (forex.com) is having trouble with raising the large amount it asked for earlier, and is now only pushing to get listed in the stock exchange. Such a move will still make the company public, and perhaps a rise in the price of the share will allow for a second public offering, this time allowing the forex broker to raise money for its own use.

Here’s a quote from Bloomberg:

The Bedminster, N.J., company says it plans to sell 401,692 shares while selling shareholder offer 10.6 million shares, which the company expects to price between $13 and $15 per share.  It plans to use the net proceeds to pay the expenses related to the IPO. The company says it will not receive any of the proceeds from the shares sold by shareholders.

The IPO is scheduled for today, December 15th. We’ll soon see how this works out. The initial valuation of Gain was already lowered from $536 million to $434 million, but the sum offering was expected to be much higher, boosting the company’s war chest.

The Gain IPO follows a successful IPO by FXCM conducted two weeks ago. FXCM raised over $200 million and was valued at over $1 billion. Since the FXCM IPO, the stock dropped from $14 to $13.10 at the last session, still a high valuation.

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