2010 a slow year for local IPOs

The global appetite for initial public offerings improved greatly in 2010 as pent-up demand welcomed 473 IPOs onto the market, following a dry spell in which new offerings dwindled to fewer than 200 a year, according to IPO tracker Renaissance Capital.

The Seattle area did not take part in the IPO rally, however. Only two companies here went public in the U.S. market in 2010, up from one in 2009. They are the only three local companies to complete IPOs since the fall of 2007.

The newest local companies to IPO are Symetra Financial, a Bellevue-based life and health insurer that raised $365 million in January, and Motricity, the Bellevue-based wireless service provider, which raised just $50 million in June after originally estimating it would raise $250 million.

Motricity's $50 million IPO in June was possible only after mega-investor Carl Icahn, who already owned 18.5 percent of the company, agreed to buy up to a million shares.

The smaller IPO has done better in its first months as a public stock. Motricity's shares went public at $10 and ended the year at $18.57, up 85.7 percent. Symetra, by contrast, sold its IPO shares for $12 and ended the year at $13.70, up 14.2 percent.

A third local company went public in 2010, but not in the U.S.: HaloSource of Bothell, which sells products for purifying water, sold $80 million worth of stock on the AIM stock exchange in London.

One sector that has produced many Washington IPOs is health sciences, but that field is currently out of favor with investors, said William Smead, the head of Smead Capital Management in Seattle.

"Washington is a powerhouse in health sciences, but it's difficult to take a biotech company public right now, no matter how good their science is," he said.

Five companies with local ties pulled back from IPO plans, among them Safeco parent Liberty Mutual Group of Boston, which had hoped to raise $1.2 billion.

Other IPO hopefuls that did not come through in 2010 include industrial chemical distributor Univar in Redmond, which expected to raise $862 million but pulled out in July as its owner sold a big stake to a private equity firm; Fortune Bank in Seattle, which indefinitely postponed its planned $460 million offering; and online information marketer Intelius in Bellevue, which withdrew a $144 million IPO plan it had filed in 2008.

InfrastruX Group of Seattle abandoned plans to raise $290 million through an IPO and was sold in March to Willbros Group for about $480 million. Both provide construction services to the energy industry.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com