Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch are the joint book-running managers and Evercore Partners is co-manager in the deal.  The underwriters will also get a 750,000 share overallotment option in the underwriting.

The company said that the proceeds will be used to acquire new vessels, capital expenditures, and other general corporate purposes such as paying down debt.

At $9.26 as of yesterday’s closing bell, the 52-week trading range is $6.50 to $9.78.  The $46 million implied in proceeds compares to a market cap of $610 million before the effects of any offering.

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JON C. OGG

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.

Over half of the dry shipping stocks in the Tickerspy index has risen over 100% off of their 52-week lows.  The industry was placed in serious jeopardy as global trade entered a state of decline during the credit crunch.  Shipping rates fell dramatically as recently as this summer, but have been on the rise in recent months.

Garrett W. McIntyre

A recent industry contact told us just how bad the shipping business has gotten.  A ship leased in May for a China departure was leased at more than 10-times the day rate that the same ship leased for in mid-October.  His comment was that it felt as though China was going to return to farming rather than building infrastructure and manufacturing facilities.

Ship Finance International Limited (NYSE: SFL) is up almost 8% at$15.32 after it canceled plans yesterday to acquire 3 vessels for $150 millionwith 12-year charters.  The company also named a new memberto its board with experience in shipping who is employeed by Frontline.The company’s 52-week trading range is $9.78 to $32.90.

Frontline Ltd. (NYSE: FRO) is also up huge today.  Shares are up 12% at$37.60, and its 52-week trading range is $25.00 to $72.36.

Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. (NYSE: OSG) was just upgraded at Oppenheimer yesterdaymorning.  Shares rose more than 10% yesterday and shares are up another7% at $45.00 this morning.  Its 52-week trading range is $32.54 to$97.79.

Nordic American Tanker Shipping Ltd. (NYSE: NAT) is seeing a 7% rise to$32.89, which is up 50% from its lows and right in the middle of the$22.00 to $42.00 trading range of the last 52-weeks.  This company’sChairman/CEO will be giving a CNBC interview this week on November 7.

Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE: SB) is up big today after posting earnings of$39.2 million, or $0.72 per share, and after it declared a quarterly dividendof $0.475 per share for the quarter.  At that rate on a steady basis,shareholders are clipping more than a 20% yield if you believe that canbe sustained.  Shares are up 14% at $7.65 and the 52-week trading rangeis $4.16 to $19.23.   

An ETF which tracks shipping stocks is the Claymore/Delta Global Shipping (NYSE: SEA), and those ETF shares are up over 4% at $12.89 today.  It has only been public a limited time, but its trading range has been $9.00 to $23.60.

There are many many more shipping companies and many of these are notperforming well today.  But this sector has been battered and tatteredand it really looks like investors are using the recent strength andstability in the market to perform the analysis which they have beenscared to do for anything beyond the next hour.

The rebound in these stocks didn’t come quickly enough for Britannia Bulk, which is now apparently not trading in the US any longer.

According to a chart at Wikinvest, in May 2008 the Baltic Dry Index reached a record high level since its introduction in 1998, reaching 11,793 points.  In October this had fallen by more than 90% to around 851 points.  It is even lower today as letters of credit for shipping are harder and harder to come by.  These rates have never stayed down this  low forever.  That does not give any assurances that shipping stocks themselves will recover handily, but this looks like it is around the worst levels since the index was created.

Jon C. Ogg
November 4, 2008

Our list of 2008 IPO’s here was 30% and a somewhat active stock volume.  Below is the list of post-IPO’s we track with shares down more than 30% from the IPO price:

Stock (Ticker)                                   Loss   Close    IPO$
Safe Bulkers Inc. (SB)                     -62%   $7.27   $19.00
Navios Maritime Acquis.(NM)        -61%   $3.89   $10.00
Real Goods Solar (RSOL)             -57%   $4.25   $10.00
RackSpace Hosting Inc. (RAX)      -48%   $6.95   $12.50
Intrepid Potash (IPI)                         -36%   $20.58  $32.00
Western Gas Partners (WES)        -32%   $11.27  $16.50
Pioneer Southwest Energy (PSE) -31%   $13.11  $19.00

Jon C. Ogg
October 7, 2008

The lead underwriters are listed as Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse; and co-managers are Jefferies & Company, Dahlman Rose & Company, Poten Capital Services, and DnB NOR Markets.

As you could guess by the name, it is a shipholding company.  Safe Bulkers is an international provider of marine drybulk transportation services based in Greece, transporting bulk cargoes, particularly grain, iron ore and coal, along worldwide shipping routes for some of the world’s largest consumers of marine drybulk transportation services.  Its current fleet of 11 Japanese-built drybulk vessels, with an aggregate carrying capacity of 887,900 deadweight tons (“dwt”), has an average age of 2.6 years as of December 31, 2007 and one of the world’s youngest fleets of Panamax, Kamsarmax and Post-Panamax class vessels.

All of the shares of common stock being sold in this offering are being sold by Vorini Holdings Inc., our sole stockholder.

You can join our open email distribution list to hear about other IPO’s, secondaries, financings, spin-offs, and mergers.

Jon C. Ogg
May 19, 2008

Jon Ogg produces and edits the "10 Stocks Under $10" newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.