Three fashion-related companies are part of a robust backlog in an initial public offering pipeline that are expected to test the public markets in the second half of 2018.
More than 50 companies are on the Renaissance Capital watchlist, an IPO tracking firm. The list includes fashion-related firms Farfetch, Meili and Revolve.
Farfetch is the global online fashion platform and luxury brands retailer. According to Renaissance’s research data, Farfetch has annual volume around $215 million. Meili is an online fashion retailer in China backed by Tencent. It has estimated volume of $3 billion, while Revolve is an online fashion retailer with more than 500 women’s and men’s brands. Revolve’s estimated volume is $1 billion.
One big-name company poised for a July IPO is commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, which filed to go public on June 20. The real estate firm is backed by TPG, a private equity firm. Cushman, which is estimated to raise $500 million, is the largest upcoming deal in the IPO pipeline.
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According to Renaissance, the U.S. IPO market is well-positioned for an active third quarter. “An extended period of strong IPO returns and low market volatility has created a receptive environment for a wide variety of companies to come public,” the research firm said, noting that tech firms could “finally get their hoped-for valuations in public markets. That could cause a herd of unicorn IPOs in the back half of the year.”
Ten venture capital-backed technology unicorns completed IPOs in the second quarter, including Spotify, Dropbox and DocuSign.
Separately, BJ’s Wholesale Club was one of the 10 largest U.S. IPOs in the second quarter. BJ’s, a members-only warehouse retailer backed by private equity firms Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital Partners, completed its IPO on Wednesday and raised $638 million.
The 10 largest IPOs in the second quarter combined raised $7.7 billion, with the tech sector representing five of the deals. Overall, a total of 60 offerings were completed in the second quarter, bringing the total raise to $13.1 billion and making the period the most active IPO market in three years. Health care and tech drove the IPO activity, accounting for more than 70 percent of all IPOs in the period.