An initial public offering (IPO) is an exciting event. A business becomes a freshly minted, public company trading on a stock exchange, raising its profile that much higher and becoming the subject of much break room talk and internet speculation.
2021 was a good year for the IPO (plus its Johnny-come-lately cousin, the SPAC merger), and so far 2022 looks set to at least equal its predecessor. Here’s a brief look at three notable companies set to top the class of 2022 IPOs — Flipkart, Mobileye, and VinFast.
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1. Flipkart
It isn’t every day that one of the dominant e-commerce companies in a nation packed with more than 1.3 billion people goes on the market. But that’s what looks to be happening this year with Flipkart, one of the two sector giants in the giant nation (No. 1 is Amazon India).
Flipkart is majority-owned by Walmart, which for some time now has been talking up either an IPO or SPAC merger for its big Indian subsidiary. The American retailer now seems to be slanting toward a traditional IPO, possibly because this traditional method of going public is seen as more transparent for investors.
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From the company’s latest talk, a 2022 IPO seems to be the best bet. If that happens, Flipkart should hit a valuation of around $50 billion.
While that’s modest compared to its majority owner’s market cap of $376 billion (or, while we’re at it, Amazon’s $1.4 trillion), it tops that of other notable retail sector mainstays such as Kroger, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and Dollar General. That means if Walmart’s dream of spinning off Flipkart as a separate company is realized, it’ll be a big-time retail stock right from the start.
2. Mobileye
Speaking of potentially well-capitalized spinoffs, we’ve got tech giant Intel‘s (NASDAQ: INTC) assisted/autonomous driving unit Mobileye. Less than five years after purchasing the formerly stand-alone company in a $15.3 billion deal, Intel aims to return it to that status with an IPO that could (like Flipkart) reap as much as $50 billion, according to recent estimates.
In certain ways, Intel and Mobileye seem to be a good fit for each other.
The latter concentrates on providing “sight” for assisted and autonomous driving systems (hence the name) with advanced computer processors. Mirroring its parent’s impressive client list, Mobileye’s chips have been installed in the systems of some of the world’s top …….