Oscar Health shares closed at $6.20 on Friday, down 84% from the IPO price.
Gabby Jones/Bloomberg
IPOs soared for most of 2021, making the year one of the best ever for companies to list their shares. Several large deals went through, including the $11.9 billion Rivian Automotive offering, but big in 2021 didn’t necessarily mean better.
Broad market volatility and inflation fears this year have caused the new issues market to slow to a crawl. And most IPO stocks from 2021 are in the red; 80% of all companies that went public in 2021 are trading below their offer prices, according to the data provider Renaissance Capital. The average return of offerings from 2021 is minus 30%.
About 400 companies went public in 2021 using traditional initial public offerings. Thirty of those raised at least $1 billion on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq, according to Dealogic.
Only six were trading above their offer prices as of Friday. This includes payments company Affirm Holdings (ticker: AFRM); Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Holdings (OCDX), a provider of in vitro diagnostics equipment; Telus International (TIXT), a Canadian network services company; Chinese mobile recruitment platform Kanzhun (BZ); SentinelOne (S), an AI-powered cybersecurity platform; and Ryan Specialty Group Holdings (RYAN), a wholesale specialty insurance brokerage.
What were the worst performers among the 30? The way the IPO market works makes it tricky to make apples-to-apples comparisons.
Most traditional IPOs have lockups of 90 to 180 days that prevent shareholders from unloading their stock. The expiration of these lockups can have a big impact; if a stock is headed lower, the losses can be bigger once everyone who wants to sell has been permitted to do so.
To make our comparisons only among companies whose lockups have expired, Barron’s looked only at those that went public during the first half of 2021.
How the Deals Stacked Up
Last year, 30 IPOs raised more than $1 billion; 24 are trading below their offer price.
| Company Name | Ticker | Offer Date | Gross Proceeds | Offer Price | Total Return From Offer Price (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oscar Health | OSCR | 03-Mar-2021 | 1,444.60 | 39.00 | -85.23 |
| RLX Technology | RLX | 21-Jan-2021 | 1,398.00 | 12.00 | -74.50 |
| Oatly Group AB | OTLY | 19-May-2021 | 1,434.39 | 17.00 | -63.24 |
| Marqeta | MQ | 09-Jun-2021 | 1,411.36 | 27.00 | -61.93 |
| Full Truck Alliance Co | YMM | 22-Jun-2021 | 1,567.50 | 19.00 | -60.58 |
| TuSimple Holdings | TSP | 15-Apr-2021 | 1,351.35 | 40.00 | -60.23 |
| Shoals Technologies Group | SHLS | 26-Jan-2021 | 2,213.75 | 25.00 | -46.12 |
| Coupang | CPNG | 10-Mar-2021 | 4,550.00 | 35.00 | -45.74 |
| Playtika Holding Corp. | PLTK | 14-Jan-2021 | 2,157.98 | 27.00 | -43.96 |
| UiPath | PATH | 21-Apr-2021 | 1,538.57 | 56.00 | -41.34 |
Source: Factset
There isn’t a Raspberry award for the worst-performing big IPO. But if there was, Oscar Health (OSCR), which uses data and a technology platform to offer health insurance, would be a contender. Oscar’s shares closed their first day down nearly 11% in March 2021 and the stock has yet to trade above its $39 IPO price. On Friday, shares closed at $6.20, down 84%. According to FactSet, Oscar Health is the worst-performing big IPO from last year, with a total return of minus 85.2%.
Oscar has plenty of company. In second place is RLX Technology (RLX), a maker of e-cigarettes in China, which soared nearly 146% from its $12 offer price in January 2021. RLX since that time has largely traded below that $12 level and ended Friday at $2.98 on Friday. RLX’s total return is minus 74.5%, according to FactSet.
Oatly Group (OTLY), the oat-milk maker, had a good first day in May, with shares jumping nearly 19% from its $17 offer price. Oatly hit a high of $28.73 in June but has lost those gains, closing Friday at $6.65. Oatly is in third with a total return of minus 63.2%.
Ranking fourth is Marqeta (MQ). The fintech rose 13% from its $27 offer price in June. The company, a payment-card processing specialist, hit a high of $32.51 in November, but ended Friday at $10.53. Marqeta’s total return from its offer price is minus 61.9%.
Trucking IPOs haven’t performed well in the aftermarket, either. Full Truck Alliance (YMM), the so-called Uber for trucks in China, rose 13% from its $19 offer price in June. The stock ended Friday at $7.45. TuSimple (TSP), which is developing software that is meant to put long-haul trucks on the road without a human driver, closed flat at $40 in April. Shares closed at $16.71.
Full Truck clocks in as the fifth-worst performing big IPO from 2021, with a total return of minus 60.6%, while TuSimple ranks sixth at minus 60.2%.
In seventh place is Shoals Technologies Group (SHLS), a maker of solar-power equipment, which gained about 24% in January 2021. The stock closed Friday at $14.43 Friday, down 42% from its $25 IPO price. Shoals’ total return is minus 46.1%.
For much of 2021, Coupang (CPNG), the Korean e-commerce giant that raised $4.55 billion, reigned as the year’s largest IPO until it was displaced by Rivian (RIVN). The stock rose about 41% from its $35 IPO price in March but was trading Friday at $18.92. Coupang ranks eighth with a total return of minus 45.7%.
In ninth place is Israeli mobile-game developer Playtika Holding (PLTK), which gained 17% in January 2021. The stock closed Friday at $15.86, down about 41% from its $27 offer price. Playtika’s total return is minus 43.96%.
UiPath (PATH), which provides robotic process-automation software, rose 23% from its $56 offer price in April. The stock hit a high of $84 in June, but ended Friday at $33.43. UiPath’s total return is minus 41.3%, which places it 10th.
Write to Luisa Beltran at [email protected]
