Investors should keep an eye on IPOs

Investors are understandably feeling jittery about the sharemarket after a rocky January, as are companies looking to access public markets. In the US, not a single company went public in January, marking the first IPO-free month since 2011. The two biotechs that broke the drought, Beigene and Editas Medicine, were the first companies to list in the US since a Chinese peer-to-peer lender, Yirendai, floated and fizzled on NASDAQ on December 17. Here at home, while commentators have focused almost exclusively on volatility, the doom-and-gloom has taken the shine off what was one of the best performing investment classes of 2015 — initial public offerings. Unlike the US, it has been a reasonable start to the year for ASX-bound IPOs, with six listings completed and 18 slated at the time of writing. While big companies may be battling the headwinds of adverse business conditions, shrinking dividends and slow growth, for some smaller and nimbler local companies with solid business plans and sound growth strategies, they’re more of an opportunity than a threat... read full article: (VIEW LINK)