180 initial public offerings have been priced so far this year as of Nov. 10th, 2006:

- 104 IPOs are currently trading above initial offering price;
- 70 are trading below the offering price;
- and 6 are trading at their offer price.

Nine IPOs were priced during the week of November 6th, 2006. There are ten deals on deck for the next week hoping to raise nearly $4 billion.

IPO PERFORMANCE

ADVANCERS:

KBW Inc. (KBW: chart) priced 6.8 million shares at $21 per share, at the high end of the $19 to $21 forecast range on Wednesday. The deal was worth $163.2 million.

The shares offered represent about a 22% stake in the company. The size was increased earlier from an initial 6.5 million.

The company offered 3.9 million shares while selling stockholders sold the remaining 2.9 million shares.

KBW and Merrill Lynch were the lead underwriters on the deal.
The underwriters have an option to buy more than 1 million shares to cover excess demand.

New York-based company is a parent of financial services investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

KBW is a leading underwriter and market-maker to the financial services industry. It follows a series of securities companies that launched IPOs in the past two years amid booming mergers and acquisitions and trading activity.

The company’s shares ended the week at $28.75 per share, up 37% from the IPO price.

The cosmetics maker Physicians Formula (FACE: chart) priced its IPO of 7.5 million shares at $17 a share on Wednesday, the high end of the $15 to $17 expected range. The offering was worth $127.5 million.

Of all the shares offered 4.4 million were sold by selling stockholders and the remaining 3.1 million shares were sold by the company.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Citigroup were the lead underwriters of the deal.

The selling stockholders have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to 1.1 million additional shares to cover excess demand.

The Azusa, California-based company develops cosmetics that address skin imperfections and includes face powders, bronzers, concealers, blushes, foundations, eye shadows, eye liners, brow makeup and mascaras.

Physicians Formula follows the successful performance of Bare Escentuals (BARE: chart) in September, which opened higher 27% at start.

The company’s shares closed at $19.19 per share on Friday, up 13% from the initial offering price.

The specialty pharmaceutical company Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. (CPRX: chart) priced 3.4 million shares at $6 per share on Wednesday.
All the shares are being offered by the company.