Waves and Waves of Secondary Pricings (CVGI, CPA, G, HIG, HRP, NLST, SB, TSL)

This week week may have been a record for any recent period on how many secondary offerings came to market combined with how many specific filings were made to raise funds for public companies.  And the filings became pricings as corporations decided to use the unusual market strength to bolster their books.  In some cases it was just for insiders or holders to sell.  The key pricings were in Commercial Vehicle Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CVGI), Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE: CPA), Genpact Ltd. (NYSE: G), The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: HIG), HRPT Properties Trust (NYSE: HRP), Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST), Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE: SB), and Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL).

We have provided the size and price of each deal with the relative price movement, underwriters, share impact, and comparisons on the size of the company if applicable.

Commercial Vehicle Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CVGI) filed this week for a secondary offering and this morning it priced 3,800,000 shares of common stock at a price of $6.25 per share.  The offering is by the company and the approximately $22 million is earmarked for general corporate purposes and Robert W. Baird & Co. acted as underwriter for the offering. Shares are down 0.3% at $6.66 on over 300,000 shares versus 91,000 shares per day on average.  The market cap before any effects of this stock is $146.7 million and the 52-week range is $0.51 to $8.08.

Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE: CPA) was not seen this week in the filings but this morning priced 1,600,000 of its Class A non-voting shares by its selling holder CIASA at $56.00 per share.  Morgan Stanley was the sole book-runner.  Shares are flat now at $57.05, so it held above the offering despite the funds going to a holder rather than the company; its market cap is $2.47 billion.

Genpact Ltd. (NYSE: G) was at $14.91 after the company registered to sell 28 million shares of common stock for selling shareholders, but this morning the pricing is for 33.6 million shares at a price of $15.00 per share.  Now shares are up 1% at $15.30 this morning.  Those holders include General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) affiliates, as well as General Atlantic and  Oak Hill Capital Partners.  Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are lead book-running managers; Citigroup, UBS Securities, and Credit Suisse are joint book-running managers; JPMorgan Securities and Wells Fargo are co-lead managers.

The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: HIG) announced last night the pricing of its public offering of $1.1 billion aggregate principal amount of its senior notes after it had priced its stock offering the day before: that equity offering was 52.253 million shares of common stock at $27.75 per share AND a concurrent offering of 20 million depositary shares representing a 1/40th interest in The Hartford’s 7.25% Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock (Series F) at $25.00 per depositary share.  As previously noted, this is to repay the TARP.

HRPT Properties Trust (NYSE: HRP) announced on Thursday evening the pricing of 30 million shares of common stock as a price of $7.25 per share “to repay amounts outstanding under its $750 million revolving credit facility and fund general business activities…”  The joint book-running managers are Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo; co-lead managers are Jefferies & Company, Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., RBC Capital Markets and UBS Investment Bank. The co-managers for this offering are Janney Montgomery Scott and Oppenheimer & Co.  This stock is down 2.6% at $7.30 and the trading volume is 8.7 million shares versus almost 2 million shares per day on average.   The market cap before any effects of the offering is $1.64 billion and the 52-wek trading range is $2.91 to $8.13.

Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) priced 3,995,000 shares of common stock at $3.85 per share for gross proceeds of approximately $15.38 million.  The original filing was for 3,000,000 shares.  The company expects to receive net proceeds of approximately $14.12 million and it granted underwriters a 30-day overallotment option to purchase up to 599,250 additional shares.  The offering was from Needham & Company, LLC as the book-runner and Roth Capital Partners LLC as co-manager.  Before any effects of the offering, Netlist had a market cap if $78.5 million based upon shares being down 7.8% at $3.90.  Volume is rather light at 380,000 shares as of 9:52 AM EST considering how much this one ran up exponentially on the cloud rush.

Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE: SB) was not one we covered this week, but the Greek shipper priced a 9,000,000 common share stock offering at $7.00 per share.  Concurrently with the pricing, it is selling 1,000,000 shares to the controlling shareholder named Vorini Holdings Inc. at the public offering price.  BofA Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are the joint book-running managers; co-managers are Evercore Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald, DnB NOR Markets, Oppenheimer, and RBS; the underwriters were given an option to purchase up to an additional 1,350,000 shares to cover over allotments.

Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL) filed to sell up to 7,900,000 ADSs this week.  Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays Capital will be the book-runners.  The company also noted that it will grant the underwriters an option to purchase up to additional 1,185,000 shares.  The offering was priced at 7.9 million ADSs at $20.25 per share.  The stock was at $22.12 after a 4% drop on the announcement this week but shares right after the open are trading up 0.5% at $20.65.

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JON C. OGG