Chuy's (CHUY) started trading on the NASDAQ on 24 July 2012

Founded in Austin, Texas in 1982, Chuy's (NASDAQ: CHUY) owns and operates 36 full-service restaurants across 8 states serving a distinct menu of authentic, made from scratch Tex Mex inspired dishes. Chuy's highly flavorful and freshly prepared fare is served in a fun, eclectic and irreverent atmosphere, while each location offers a unique, "unchained" look and feel, as expressed by the concept's motto "If you've seen one Chuy's, you've seen one Chuy's!". For further information about Chuy's, visit Chuys.com.

Manchester United reveals IPO details; announces seven-year shirt sponsorship with GM

English soccer club Manchester United on Monday revealed details of its long-awaited initial public offering.

• It plans to offer 16.7 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange
• Shares will be priced between $16 and $20 a share, meaning the IPO could raise more than $330 million.
• The club's ticker will be MANU.

Manchester United is owned by the American Glazer family, which took over the club using mostly debt; according to the filing, there is still £437 million ($687 million) of borrowings outstanding; finance costs in 2011 alone were £51 million.

The Glazers will retain control of the club through its ownership of Class B shares, which will have 10 times the voting power of the stock sold to the public.

The club was listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1991 until the Glazers completed a leveraged buyout valued at $1.47 billion in June 2005.

The Glazers also own the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Manchester United have agreed a seven year deal with Chevrolet, which will see the car manufacturer replace Aon as the club's official shirt sponsor.

Chevrolet is the current Official Car Partner of the Red Devils, and will become only the fifth shirt sponsor in the club’s 134 year history, at the beginning of the 2014/15 season.

The team just three years ago signed a jersey agreement with then-Chicago-based insurance brokerage Aon Corp., which has since moved its headquarters to London to gain proximity to financial markets and benefit from a lower tax burden.

That deal has been estimated to be worth more than $30 million annually — the most lucrative jersey sponsorship deal in soccer history — and GM is reportedly shelling out between $60 million and $70 million annually, according to Reuters, to become the fifth jersey sponsor in the team's history and advertise to its estimated following of 659 million people.
It's worth noting that Man U has now signed its second consecutive American company, in line with the efforts of several European soccer clubs that are trying to grow fans in the United States.

Reversal of fortune for Zynga; stock down 40% after poor earnings

A weak second-quarter earnings report and worse expectations for the rest of the year sent Zynga’s already faltering stock down in late trading Wednesday by more than a third, to $3.18 a share.


Looking at the results, its hard to find any bright spots for the social gaming giant.

Revenue was $332 million, up 19% year over year, but falling short of analyst expectations. Moreover, bookings were down 8% compared with the first quarter of 2012.

Zynga also reported a net income loss of $22.8 million, thanks in part to a $95.5 million stock-based expense.

The company reported a diluted earnings per share (EPS) loss of ($0.03) for the second quarter and a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) EPS of $0.01.

Zynga also adjusted its outlook for the rest of 2012 in order to “reflect delays in launching new games, a faster decline in existing web games due in part to a more challenging environment on the Facebook web platform, and reduced expectations for Draw Something.”


The Facebook revelation is interesting, as it could indicate either increased competition on the platform or larger monetization problems on Facebook itself.

The unexpected news was seen as boding ill for Facebook, which is closely tied to Zynga and will issue its first earnings report as a public company on Thursday. Facebook shares fell 8 percent in late trading.

*** chart before earnings ***

 ** weekly **

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) started trading on the NYSE on July 20, 2012

Palo Alto Networks Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif. — also had a successful IPO this week. The enterprise software maker priced its initial public offering shares at $42 on Thursday, raising $260 million. Trading under the symbol PANW, its shares closed at $53.13 on Friday, 26 percent over the initial price.

Kayak Software (KYAK) started trading on the NASDAQ on July 20, 2012

Kayak Software jumps 29% on IPO debut

Shares of Kayak Software (US:kyak) jumped 29% to $33.78 after the stock opened trading on the Nasdaq on Friday morning, following its initial public offering. The shares rose to $33.60, after pricing at $26 late Thursday. The company sold 3.5 million shares in the offering. Morgan Stanley and Deutsche bank led the deal. The stock opened trading at $30.10. The IPO follows another strong debut from Palo Alto Networks (US:panw) earlier in the morning, with that stock up more than 34% from its IPO price.

** 3 weeks later **

Facebook killed the IPO market

A few weeks ago, the IPO market was red-hot.

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) was about to make its record-setting debut, when it not only became the third-largest initial public offering in U.S. history but also the 11th IPO to price in the first 17 days of the month.

That brought the U.S. IPO tally to 65 new public companies in just over three-and-a-half months, good enough to make it the busiest four-month stretch since the last four months of 2010.

Since then? Utter silence. Not a single U.S. company has gone public since the well-documented disaster that was the Facebook IPO. It's been less than three weeks since the social network went public. But in the IPO market, that's a lifetime.

This is the longest IPO drought by far since January, when only four companies went public on the heels of a tumultuous year for new stocks. Prior to the second half of May, there hadn't been more than a week between IPOs since the first month of the year.

The lull is perhaps partly due to the fact that many companies rushed to get their IPOs out the door before Facebook went public, so as to ride the social network's coattails while IPOs were en vogue. Now that Facebook has tanked since going public - the stock is down a staggering 31.5% since the company's May 18 debut - IPOs are no longer "cool."

In fact, it's more than just perception. It's probable that many companies are looking at Facebook's post-IPO failure and wondering: If a company that well-known and that profitable gets crushed after going public, what chance do we stand?

And as Facebook tanks, it's dragging other recent IPOs down with it.

Of the 10 stocks that went public other than Facebook in May, six of them have already fallen below their IPO price. The average return among them is 1.9%. Compare that to the 8.7% average returns among all of this year's IPOs, and the drop-off is clear.

So with returns among new stocks dwindling and Facebook becoming more and more of a cautionary tale by the day, the IPO market could remain silent for some time. As of now, Renaissance Capital (a great source for all things IPO) lists only one stock on its upcoming IPO calendar. That's a far cry from the past four months, when the calendar was typically booked solid with dozens of companies waiting to price.

Just as Facebook may have been responsible for jumpstarting the IPO market, it now seems that the stock's very public struggles have effectively scared off all other prospective IPOs.

Manchester United files for IPO of up to $100 million

Manchester United, the legendary English soccer club, filed  with U.S. regulators to raise $100 million in an initial public offering of its Class A common stock.

The move by the team's owners, the Glazer family, which also owns the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, wasn't unexpected, but the filing provided a window into the finances of one of the most popular sports brands in the world.

According to the filing, United had $520 million in revenue last year. However, the team is also carrying some $664 million in debt, a sum that critics have said is preventing Manchester United from acquiring the top players in the world.

The plan comes after a disappointing season for United, which has won 60 trophies during its 134-year history. The team was beaten out for the English Premier League title by crosstown rival Manchester City and was eliminated from the European club championship before the final knockout rounds of the tournament.

While the team is going through with the public offering, the Glazers intend to remain in full control. The team didn't set a launch date, stock symbol, price range or offering size, specifying only that there will be two share classes, Class A and Class B, with Class B controlling most of the voting rights. The team plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.


"The interests of our principal shareholder might not coincide with the interests of the other holders of our capital stock," the filing warned.

Manchester United's Nemanja Vidic (C) lifts the trophy with teammates after their FA Community Shield soccer match against Manchester City at Wembley Stadium in London August 7, 2011.

Thomson Reuters publication IFR reported last month that the football club had dropped its plans for an Asian listing in favor of a U.S. listing.

After first eyeing a Hong Kong IPO, the former English soccer champions had planned a $1 billion listing in Singapore in the second half of last year before putting the plans on hold because of market turmoil.

Manchester United told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus on Tuesday that Jefferies, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank Securities are underwriting the IPO.

United, which has been English league champions a record 19 times and features players such as England's Wayne Rooney, intends to list its Class A common shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

The club intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to repay debt.

The filing did not reveal how many shares it plans to sell or their expected price.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Manchester United traces its origins to 1878, when its predecessor Newton Heath LYR was formed by railyard workers. it changed its name in 1902 when a brewery owner invested in the team.