Opening Day: Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava soars in market debut

Shares of Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava Group soared as much as 112% in their market debut on Thursday. The restaurant company plans to use the proceeds from its initial public offering for new location openings and general corporate purposes.

LATEST IPOS AND DIRECT LISTINGS:

Cava Group (CAVA) opened on June 15 at $42. The company had priced 14.44M shares at $22.00, above the $17.00-$19.00 range. Cava operates a Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant brand.

Azitra (AZTR), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative therapies for precision dermatology using engineered proteins and topical live biotherapeutic products, opened on June 16 at $4.26 per share. The company had priced 1.5M shares at $5.00, the midpoint of the $4.50-$5.50 range.

BranchOut Food (BOF), which identifies itself as “an emerging natural food brand with a licensed technology platform that enables manufacturing and marketing of plant-based dehydrated foods,” priced 1.19M shares at $6.00 and opened on June 16 at $5.69 per share. The deal priced at the bottom of the $6.00-$8.00 range.

ATS Corporation (ATS) opened on May 25 at $41.10. The company had priced its 6.0M share New York IPO at $41.00. ATS Corporation is an automation solutions provider.

SPAC IPOS THIS WEEK:

ESH Acquisition (ESHA) opened on June 14 at $10.08. The blank check company intends to focus its search on businesses that are focused in the music and entertainment, sports and hospitality industries.

PERFORMANCE:

• Cava Group cooled off in its second day of trading and ended the week at $38.15.
• ATS Corporation finished Friday at $45.69.
• Azitra closed the week at $4.94.
• BranchOut Food ended Friday’s trading at $4.43.

UPCOMING IPOS:

Upcoming IPO and direct listings expected include Simpple (SPPL), Pixie Dust (PXDT), SoftBank’s Arm, Alibaba’s Freshippo, and Zeekr.

Click here to see upcoming IPO calendar on TipRanks.

Simpple filed an initial public offering of 1.625M ordinary shares. The estimated initial public offering price is expected to be between $4.00-$5.00 per share. The company has applied to list its shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “SPPL.”

Pixie Dust filed an initial public offering of its common shares, represented by American Depositary Shares, ADSs. Each ADS represents one common share, and the company is offering 2M ADSs. Pixie Dust currently expects the initial public offering price to be between $9.00-$10.00 per ADS. Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for Pixie Dust common shares or ADSs. Pixie Dust intends to apply to list the ADSs on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbol “PXDT.”

SoftBank Group (SFTBY), which said in March it planned to list chip maker Arm Ltd in the U.S. stock market, has filed with regulators confidentially for a U.S. stock market listing, people familiar with the matter told Reuters’ Anirban Sen and Echo Wang. Arm plans to sell its shares on Nasdaq later this year, seeking to raise between $8B and $10B, setting the stage for this year’s largest initial public offering, the sources said. SoftBank has been targeting a listing for Arm, which competes with Intel (INTC) and others, since its deal to sell the semi chip designer to Nvidia (NVDA) for $40B collapsed last year because of objections from antitrust regulators, the report noted.

Freshippo, the Alibaba (BABA) grocery chain known for selling cooked lobsters and grouper freshly chosen from fish-tanks in the store, has started preparations for a Hong Kong initial public offering, Bloomberg‘s Pei Li and Manuel Baigorri report, citing people familiar with the matter.

Zeekr, the upscale unit of Chinese EV maker Geely Automobile (GELYF), has confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering that values the company at more than $10B, reports Julie Zhu and Scott Murdoch for Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter. “The plans come as the brand, which competes with Tesla (TSLA) and Chinese peer Nio (NIO), sets its sights on marketing its 001 crossover” in Europe for 2023, added the Reuters story.

Instacart has been priming for a public market debut, but a potential IPO of the food and grocery delivery company may be delayed by a slowdown in growth as Instacart saw its gross order volume grow between 5% and 10% compared to the same period last year in the first quarter, down from the 16% growth rate seen for all of 2022, people briefed on the matter told The Information‘s Cory Weinberg. Instacart competes in the same space as public companies that include Uber (UBER) and DoorDash (DASH).

OTHER IPO, SPAC MERGER NEWS:

Chijet Motor Company, a developer of next-generation electric vehicles, was officially listed on NASDAQ on June 2, 2023 under the ticker symbol “CJET,” after completing its business combination with Jupiter Wellness Acquisition Corp. (JWAC).

Opening Day” is The Fly’s recurring series of stories on the latest initial public offerings, their performance, analyst commentary and upcoming IPOs.