Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Despite the uncertainty of 2020, initial public offerings (IPOs) in the US set records in 2020, recording 407 IPOs that raised a total of $145 billion. The 2020 IPO boom more than doubled the 195 IPOs recorded in 2019 that raised a total of $56 billion. Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which made up 230 IPOs, influenced the bulk of the IPO activity in 2020. Although most of the SPACs have not yet completed their mergers, the completed SPAC mergers in 2020 showed a 41 percent return. Excluding SPACs, traditional IPOs raised $83 billion across 203 issuers, again representing the strongest IPO market in two decades.
Although retailers made up only a small portion of the IPOs in 2020, the number of retail IPOs has increased year over year, and we expect this trend to continue into 2021. For example, mattress retailer Casper filed its IPO in February. As market volatility decreased, more retailers announced plans to go public. In September, Poshmark announced its plans to go public. The clothing reseller eventually completed its IPO in January 2021, raising $277 million in the offering. Pet retailer Petco consummated its IPO in early 2021, raising $864 million. Further, in December 2020, Barkbox, an online pet subscription service, announced its plans to enter the public markets via a $1.6 billion SPAC merger, which is expected to be completed in 2021.