Yelp (YELP) : 2-year performance

** weekly **

** monthly **

Shake Shack files for IPO

U.S. burger chain Shake Shack on Monday filed for an initial public offering of up to $100 million of shares. The company said it plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SHAK." 

J.P. Morgan,  Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Goldman Sachs & Co, Jefferies, William Blair and Stifel are joint underwriters on the deal. The company, which has 63 outlets in the U.S. and overseas, said it had total sales of $82.5 million in 2013, up from $57 million in 2012 and $19 million in 2010.

• The $135-billion burger market. The company says burgers are the “largest dine-out segment” in the U.S., with more than $72 billion in sales last year. That makes it twice the size of the pizza market, the next largest category. Burgers are “the quintessential American meal,” but are also popular overseas, with an estimated global market size of over $135 billion, the filing says.
• Manhattan vs. the world. The company distinguishes the revenues and profit margins at its Manhattan locations vs. its non-Manhattan locations, saying the volumes in Manhattan Shake Shacks have historically been higher because of “the population density and overall familiarity with the Shake Shack brand.” Since most of its future growth is expected to occur outside of Manhattan, the company says investors are better off judging the company by its non-Manhattan numbers.
• Revenue is measured in “same Shack sales.” Forget “same store sales.” At Shake Shack, they measure performance in “same Shack sales.”  As of Sept. 24, that growth had been slowing down among the 12 Shake Shacks open more than two years. “Same Shack sales growth” slowed to 3.0% as of Sept. 24 from 5.5% the prior year. 
• International presence. There are Shake Shacks in Lebanon. And Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other countries. There are 27 international Shake Shacks in all, and they are licensed locations, not company operated. The filing says the international locations paid license fees of approximately $3.5 million in fiscal 2013. More could be coming. As the filing says: “we continue to attract substantial interest from potential international licensees around the world and have identified opportunities to expand our licensing footprint in existing and new international markets.”
• Product Placement sells. Shake Shack has appeared over and over again in movies, TV shows and other media. The company brags that instead of paying for the privilege, it’s charged fees for the use of its facilities. The filing boasts of appearances in the movies Something Borrowed and Tower Heist and “the acclaimed” HBO series The Newsroom. The burger chain has also been featured in segments on The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, CBS Sunday Morning and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Long candidate : Habit Restaurants (HABT)

El Pollo Loco (LOCO) : 5-month performance

Great trade : Virgin America (VA) +25% (12/14)

• buy $34.80  on Dec 19,14
• $41 on 3rd trading day --> +17%

 4 days later

Freshpet (FRPT) : 1-month performance

3 days later +20%

TubeMogul (TUBE) : 5-month performance

INC Research (INCR) : 1-month performance

Ocular Therapeutix (OCUL) : 5-month performance

Zafgen (ZFGN) : 6-month performance

IPOs raised $85.2 billion in 2014

IPOs raised $85.2 billion in 2014
Alibaba was responsible for $25 billion. HortonWorks, Zendesk , GrubHub, GoPro, Hubspot, LendingClub, NewRelic, Arista

Virgin America (VA) : 1-month performance

OnDeck Capital (ONDK) began trading on the NYSE on 17 December 2014

Description

On Deck Capital Inc is a United States-based financing network that offers financing to small businesses that do not meet the criteria for traditional bank loans. The Company uses data aggregation and electronic payment technology to evaluate the financial health of small and medium sized businesses. The OnDeck system also provides a critically needed mechanism for financial institutions and other business service providers to reach the Main Street small business market. It has offices in Kansas City and McLean Virginia. It's small business loans include dental loans, restaurant loans, medical financing, restaurant financing, fast small business loans, fast small business financing, online small business loans, online applications for small business loans, small business loans online, retail capital, fast small business financing, short-term business loans, business equipment financing, small business equipment financing and merchant cash advance.

Address

1400 Broadway Fl 25
NEW YORK, NY 10018-5225
United States

Website 

https://www.ondeck.com

Coty (COTY) : 18-month performance

COTY weekly

Potbelly (PBPB) plans major European expansion

Chicago-based sandwich chain Potbelly has signed a “big deal” with a franchisee to expand into a “large European capital” by the early part of 2015, the company's chief executive said today.

 ticker: PBPB

CEO Aylwin Lewis, speaking at an Executives' Club of Chicago forum, said Potbelly will eventually have more shops outside of North America than in, all of which will be run by franchisees. In an interview following the event, Lewis declined to say how many stores the company plans to open in Europe or in which cities. He said details will be announced early next year.

CEO Aylwin Lewis

The stores would be the company's first in Europe and are part of Lewis' plan to build “a Potbelly global nation one neighborhood at a time.” The sandwich chain, which had 347 stores as of Sept. 28, expanded into the Middle East in 2012, where it operates a dozen franchise stores in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

The company has said it plans eventually to operate more than 1,000 U.S. stores.

10-month chart

Lewis said the overseas stores will import about 80 percent of Potbelly's domestic menu and add items depending on the location. In its Middle East stores, for example, Potbelly offers a handful of menu items not found in U.S. stores, including baked onion rings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, beef bacon cheese fries and chicken strips.

The news comes amid a rough year for the company, which went public in October 2013. Executives have said Potbelly projects flat to negative low-single-digit comparable store sales for the year, which has sent company shares downward. Same-store sales, a benchmark measure of a chain's financial health, declined 2.2 percent in the first quarter and 1.6 percent in the second quarter before rebounding to .5 percent growth in the most-recent quarter, which ended Sept. 28.

Shares of Potbelly stock debuted at $14 per share and rose more than 120 percent on its first day of trading to just more than $30 per share. Since then, it's been all downhill. Potbelly stock was trading at $11.90 mid-day today, down more than 50 percent for the year.

Since Lewis took over as CEO in June 2008, the company has more than doubled its number of stores, the majority of which are corporate-owned. A handful of domestic stores and all its international locations are operated by franchisees.

Zayo Group (ZAYO) began trading on the NYSE on 17 October 2014

Description

Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. (ZGL) is a provider of bandwidth infrastructure in the United States and Europe. The Company’s products include leased dark fiber, fiber to cellular towers and small cell sites, wavelength connections, Ethernet and Internet protocol (IP) connectivity and other high-bandwidth offerings. It provides its services over a set of dense metro, regional, and long-haul fiber networks and through its interconnect-oriented datacenter facilities. Its customer base includes consumers of bandwidth infrastructure services, such as wireless service providers; telecommunications service providers; financial services companies; social networking, media and Web content companies; education, research and healthcare institutions, and governmental agencies. It provides its bandwidth infrastructure services for a fixed monthly recurring fee under contracts. The Company operates in three segments: Physical Infrastructure, Lit Services and Other.

Address

1805 29th St Unit 2050
BOULDER, CO 80301-1067
United States 

Website http://www.zayo.com

Key stats and ratios

	Q3 (Sep '14)	2014
Net profit margin	-34.47%	-16.17%
Operating margin	-12.32%	4.82%
EBITD margin	-	35.10%
Return on average assets	-8.77%	-3.91%
Return on average equity	-124.83%	-35.52%
Employees	1,513

Hortonworks (HDP) began trading on the NASDAQ on 12 December 14

Update: 

• Hortonworks (HDP) was acquired by peer Cloudera (CLDR)  (Oct 2018)
• Cloudera (CLDR) was acquired by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and KKR (June 2021)

 

Description

Hortonworks, Inc. (Hortonworks) is a provider and distributor of Hadoop solutions. The Company’s solutions offer re-platforming of data center architectures. Its products include Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) and Hortonworks Sandbox. The Company’s Hortonworks Data Platform is an open source, data management platform built on Apache Hadoop and powered by YARN. The Hortonworks Data Platform is built from various open source software components, including Apache Hadoop and is designed for mainstream enterprise adoption. The Hortonworks Data Platform provides linear storage and compute across a range of access methods. The Hortonworks Sandbox is a personal and portable Hadoop environment, which provides the way to get started with Enterprise Grade Hadoop and the Hortonworks Data Platform. It provides support subscription offerings and related professional services to support subscription customers, including enterprises, educational institutions and government agencies.

Address

3460 W Bayshore Rd
PALO ALTO, CA 94303-4227
United States 

Website 

hortonworks.com

Calithera Biosciences (CALA) began trading on the NASDAQ on 2 October 2014

Address

343 Oyster Point Blvd # 200
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94080-1913
United States

Website 

www.calithera.com

Key stats and ratios

	Q3 (Sep '14)	2013
Net profit margin	-	-
Operating margin	-	-
EBITD margin	-	-
Return on average assets	-59.79%	-65.31%
Return on average equity	-	-
Employees	36

SeaWorld (SEAS) CEO to Step Down as Park Attendance Drops

SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. said Thursday that its CEO is stepping down as head of the company and named its chairman as interim leader.

Attendance at its theme parks has been weak since the recession and has dropped in three of the past four quarters. SeaWorld has also been battling negative publicity since the release of "Blackfish" last year, a documentary that suggested its treatment of animals may have led to the death of trainers.

** weekly chart **

SeaWorld has been trying to combat the decline with a turnaround effort. It said Thursday that it will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs as part of previously announced cost cuts, which are expected to save $50 million annually. The company would not say how many jobs it planned to cut.

Jim Atchison, the chief executive officer of SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS)

Jim Atchison has served as CEO and president since 2009. He will become vice chairman and will be nominated to the board of its independent nonprofit conservation fund.

Chairman David D'Alessandro will take over as interim CEO Jan. 15 and serve until a permanent replacement is found.

The company on Thursday also appointed two new directors to its board: Ellen Tauscher, a former congresswoman from California, and former advertising executive William Gray. Gray has also been a senior adviser to Blackstone, an investment firm and minority shareholder in SeaWorld.

Shares of SeaWorld, which operates 11 theme parks across the country, rose 16 cents in extended trading. Its stock closed Thursday up 45 cents to $16.09. The Orlando, Florida-based company's shares have lost about 45 percent in the past year.

Lending Club (LC) began trading on the NYSE on 11 December 2014

LendingClub CEO Renaud Laplanche (third from right) embraces company CFO Carrie Dolan during opening bell ceremonies of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

Co-founded in 2007 by CEO Renaud Laplanche, LendingClub pioneered the peer-to-peer lending industry that now includes dozens of smaller competitors.

It bypasses the traditional bank-loan process by connecting borrowers with lenders for personal loans up to $35,000 that can be used for everything from paying off debt to paying for a vacation.

Small businesses can borrow up to $100,000.

Borrowers pay lower interest rates than what’s offered by credit cards; investors can fund a variety of loans for as little as $25 each and receive steady monthly income as borrowers make payments.

LendingClub, which on its website says it has arranged more than $6.2 billion in loans and paid nearly $600 million in interest to investors, generates revenue through transaction and service fees on the loans.

Shipped Monday Dec 1, 2014

First Class

Priority Mail

Priority Mail

Citius Pharmaceuticals (CTXR) began trading on the Nasdaq on 1 December 2014

Citius Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes critical care products. It primarily focuses on developing anti-infective, cancer care, and prescription products.

• Headquarters: Cranford, NJ
• Founded: 2007
• citiuspharma.com
• Sector: Healthcare
• Industry: Biotechnology
• Full Time Employees: 7