Would-be public firms bide time as the market hibernates - Boston Business Journal:

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Withdrawals of plans for public offerings by Massachusettz companies jumpedlast year, with seven firms pulling back By comparison, one local company reversed coursse on a planned IPO in 2007 and two did so in according to research from Greenwich, Conn., IPO tracker LLC. In the wake of the 2001 dot-conm bust, 12 local firms filed IPO withdrawap notices with the Securities and Exchange Life sciences companies made up all but two of the withdrawalein 2008, the others being Worcester semiconductor manufacturetr and Waltham domain-name marketplace NameMedia Inc. Both declinedc to comment for thisthe story.
The uptick in withdrawalw coincided with an otherwise abysmal year for statewideand nationally. For the first time in at least a not asingle Massachusetts-based venture-backed companyu went public. The last such company to go Andover-based sensor developer (Nasdaq: MEMS), did so in Decembef 2007. Just seven IPOs by U.S. venture- backed companiess made it to marketlast year, down 93 percent from 2007, according to Renaissance Capital.
In the withdrawal filings, companies cited poor market conditions as the primarty reasons for the Those samemarket conditions, along with tight credirt markets, make it exceedingly difficult for firms to raise the capitapl necessary to continue from private Executives say the disappointment of their failed IPO effortes have forced their companies to reconsider other fundingv sources and rejigger theier growth strategies.
“Last year was a pretth cruel year for a lot of companiee inour position,” said Albert CEO of , a Woburn developer of toola for life sciences “We were ready to go and the market conditionws were so abysmal, we decided it wasn’t worthg the expense of keeping the filing active.” The compant dropped its plan to go public last month aftetr filing its prospectus in April. Even non-venturre backed companies are feeling the Brockton bank holdingcompany Inc. went so far as to offedr shares tothe public, but so far has been unsuccessfulo in completing the offering. The company recently decide to resolicit orders for shares beginninvgthis month.
“The volatility of the stock market, the significant downturj in the economy and the highly publicizexd problems in the financial servicez sector all combined to dampen confidences and constrict the level of and particularlylocal participation, in our offering,” said Campello president David Curtis in a Dec. 3 statement. The companh had hoped to receive net proceeds from the offering ofbetweejn $15.4 million and $21. 4 million, according to regulatory In an interview, Curtis said the compan y “nearly missed” that goal the first time arounrd andis “certainly hopeful” the secondc attempt will be successful.
In the fast-growth biotech sector, BioTrove and several other life sciences firms that pullecd IPOs this year have drugs in midstage trialxs and some were even generatinfg significant revenue despite highoperating losses. But investorsd have fled the biotech sector for perceivedxsafer investments, leaving many firms trading for pennies. Severa of the companies have since gone back to the ventured capital firms that supported the them for For example, Waltham diagnostics company raisedd a $40 million Series D round of funding in July afteer pulling its IPO in January.
“We made the righgt decision — we were the first one to do so and we raised the same amoun of money in the private world with top tier said BG Medicine President andCEO Dr. Pieterf Muntendam.