Deals
BFAM

Bain Bringing Bright Horizons Private to Public

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Bain Capital is working with underwriters Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and JPMorgan Chase to orchestrate an initial public offering for child care provider Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a company Bain took private some four years ago. The new issue will trade under the ticker BFAM. The deal initially emerged as a shadowy one earlier this month, when Reuters heard of it from unnamed sources, but now a regulatory filing confirms the IPO plans. Bright Horizons traded on Nasdaq from 1998 into May 2008, when Bain funds took it private in a deal valued at $1.3 billion. The company hopes to raise as much as $220 million in an offering where Bain will retain significant influence, the filing says.

Markets
Lupowitz_Kevin

Online Markets Innovator Lupowitz Moves on from DirectMarkets

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DirectMarkets CEO Kevin Lupowitz has resigned from the company he launched as the online successor to the former Rodman & Renshaw PIPE banking powerhouse, where he was hired to develop a revolutionary online private placement market platform. Lupowitz moved on to pursue other opportunities, according to a regulatory filing by parent Direct Markets Holdings (MKTS). Rodman recruited Lupowitz as DirectMarkets' CEO, according to a February news release heralding DirectMarkets as an "automated state-of-the-art electronic transaction platform to directly link existing public company issuers and investors seeking to transact primary offerings of securities." Rodman placed over 500 deals that raised some $8.9 billion since 2006 according to PlacementTracker data. The company was involved in placing 31 deals this year but has not placed a transaction since BioSante Pharmaceuticals' registered direct in August.

Legal

More Sanctions in GlobeTel Fraud Case

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Executives of defunct PIPE issuer GlobeTel Communications Corp. engaged in extensive accounting fraud, according to a court order requiring Timothy Huff, Lawrence Lynch, Joseph Monterosso and Luis Vargas to pay a total of $3 million in disgorgement and penalties. The company raised over $25 million in seven PIPEs issued from 2004 through 2006, according to PlacementTracker data. Investors included funds managed by Nite Capital, Hudson Bay Capital, and Crescent Special Situations. The sanctions came after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the company's subsidiaries of reporting phony revenues from sales of telecom "minutes" that never actually took place.

Markets

Battery Makers Running Low

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A123 Systems’ (AONE) bankruptcy filing on Tuesday further confirmed that battery makers have been some of the worst PIPE wagers in recent years, even as the federal government has charged ahead to create a green economy filled with electric cars. From the beginning of 2009 through mid-October this year, 13 growth issuers striving to revolutionize power storage raised $769 million in 29 transactions, according to PlacementTracker. Yet many of the companies have failed to generate significant revenues and their shares are trading for pennies – if not a fraction of a penny. Just a few years ago, many of these companies enjoyed share prices well in excess of $2 or $3 – or more. Shares of Waltham, Mass.-based A123, for example, were trading around $20 for most of 2009, but they gradually began to fall in 2010 and sunk below $1 in July.