Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL) Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) Raised to Outperform at Bernstein.
Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) Raised to Buy at Auriga.
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Mueller Water (NYSE: MWA) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN) Cut to Conviction Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Panera Bread (NASDAQ: PNRA) Raised to Equal-Weight at Barclays.

You are invited to join our free daily email distribution list to hear about top analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPOs and secondary offerings, ongoing day trader and options trader alerts, stock and market rumors, Buffett and guru investor news, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG
FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Franklin Street Properties Corp. (NYSE: FSP) is trading down by about 10 after its 8 million share secondary offering priced at $13.00 through Robert W. Baird.  This is after closing at $14.76 yesterday and was increased from a previously announced offering size of 6,000,000 shares. The use of proceeds will be for the repayment of outstanding debt.

Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (NASDAQ: HBAN) was supposed to sell 78 million shares oif common stock in a public secondary offering, but the size was bumped up.  It sold 95.2 million shares of its common stock at $4.20 per shares  a price to the public of $4.20 per share after closing at $4.51 Thursday.  Goldman Sachs is the book-running manager and Sandler O’Neill & Partners, L.P. is co-manager.

Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE: MWA) is trading up after it priced a 32.28 million share secondary offering of common stock at $4.75 through BofA Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.  The original amount of shares was to be 27.5 million shares and gross proceeds is to be used to purchase additional shares and to repay a portion of indebtedness outstanding under its credit agreement.

Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE: NMM) priced its 2,800,000 common units public offering of limited partnership interests at $12.21 per unit, down from a $13.06 closing price on Thursday. Navios Partners expects to use the proceeds to fund its fleet expansion and for general partnership purposes.  Joint book running managers for this offering are Citi and J.P. Morgan, while co-managers are listed as S. Goldman Advisors LLC, DVB Capital Markets, and Cantor Fitzgerald.  Shares are down 9% at $11.85 and the market cap here is listed as $293 million after the drop and before the effects of this offering.

SmartHeat Inc. (NASDAQ: HEAT) sold 7,246,087 shares of common stock at $9.00 per share after closing at $10.06 yesterday.  The size of the offering was increased from 5,000,000 shares based on strong demand and it granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase 1,086,913 additional shares of common stock.  William Blair is the sole book-running manager and BMO Capital Markets is co-lead manager.  This is an interesting and under-followed company in China’s clean technology, energy savings industry as it makes standard plate heat exchangers, custom plate heat exchanger units and heat meters.  They must like it a lot because shares are up 13% at $11.44 on almost 2 million shares right after the open.  This even hit a 52-week high of $11.59 this morning.

Sonic Automotive Corp. (NYSE: SAH) priced two offerings, one debt and one stock.  It is selling 9 million shares at $10.10 through J.P. Morgan and BofA Merrill Lynch.  It is concurrently selling $150,000,000 aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due October 1, 2029.  The total gross proceeds from the offerings will be approximately $240.9 million and its current market cap before the effect of the offering is listed as $421 million.  Interestingly enough, Sonic Automotive is up almost 3% at $10.45 this morning.

SXC Health Solutions (NASDAQ: SXCI) sold 4,500,000 shares of common stock in a public secondary offering that priced at $41.50 per share.  This deal was sold through J.P. Morgan, Dougherty, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, and Versant, and the offering size was originally supposed to only be 3.5 million shares.  The $176 million in gross proceeds is earmarked for general corporate purposes.  Its market cap before this offering was listed as $1 billion, but shares are up 5% at $43.87 and the 52-week high is $44.67.

VIVUS Inc. (NASDAQ: VVUS) is trading up after it priced a 9,000,000 share public secondary offering at $10.50 through J.P. Morgan, and JMP Securities, Lazard Capital Markets, and Merriman Curhan Ford are acting as co-managers.  Based upon the rise seen already, we expect that the 30-day overallotment option to purchase up to  1,350,000 shares will be exercised.  Shares are up 8% at $11.45 and this gives more R&D and launch capital for its obesity drug that is expected to be approved in 2010.

We have also seen a filing out of Bruker Corporation (NASDAQ: BRKR) for a proposed public secondary offering of 12,000,000 shares of common stock being sold by two members of the Laukien family not involved in the company’s business.  Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Deutsche Bank are listed as joint book-running managers.

This is not even the full tally as there are several much smaller deals on the books as well.  Today’s deals that priced came to a total of right at $1.475 billion, and that is before the effects of any over-allotments.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week for updates on IPO’s and key secondary offerings, top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.

JON C. OGG
September 18, 2009

athenahealth (ATHN) Raised to Outperform at Blair.
Broadpoint Securities (BPSG) Started as Outperform at KBW.
Forward Air (FWRD) Raised to Buy at KeyBanc.
JDA Software (JDAS) Started as Outperform at JMP Securities.
Marvell (MRVL) Raised to Outperform at JMP Securities.
Mueller Water (MWA) Raised to Perform at Oppenheimer.
Safeway (SWY) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
State Street (STT) Started as Outperform at Bernstein.

JON C. OGG

• ASM Intl NV (NASDAQ: ASMI) raised to Buy at Jefferies.
• BorgWarner (NYSE: BWA) Raised to Overweight from Equalweight at Lehman.
• Carnival (NYSE: CCL) and Royal Caribbean (RCL) were both Downgraded to Hold from Buy at ABN AMRO.
• EMC Corp (NYSE: EMC) cut to Neutral at Bernstein.
• EW Scripps (NYSE: SSP) raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
• Mueller Water Products (NYSE: MWA) Raised to Outperform from Neutral at Baird.
• National Semi (NYSE: NSM) raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
• NStar (NYSE: NST) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
• Scana Corp. (NYSE: SCG) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
• WebMD Health (NASDAQ: WBMD) Cut to Sell from Neutral at Goldman Sachs.

Jon C. Ogg
June 18, 2008

“A merger almost inevitably is going to cause some service problems,” said Philip A. Baggaley, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s told The New York Times.

Mergers also do nothing to address high fuel costs, infrastructure, and aircraft maintenance expenses.

False economies may drive another round of carrier mergers, but they won’t keep airlines out of bankruptcy court if fuel costs stay high and the economy is weak.

The reasons that airline boards are looking at big combinations is that hope springs eternal. A merger may bring some short-term savings and "buy time" for an upturn in the economy to lift all boats.

The big airlines have another alternative. Do the hard thing. Get with labor. Cut costs. Or have another wreck in which jobs are lost more randomly because they cannot be supported by revenue.

Douglas A. McIntyre