The U.S. IPO market has gone from desolate to bustling in a matter of weeks, and companies are now looking to raise as much as $17.3 billion in the current month before SpaceX’s expected June debut changes the field again. Debuts in the coming weeks are set to bring in billions of dollars ahead of Elon Musk’s firm’s planned spacex ipo, which is already being described as the market’s biggest event of the year.
The pickup has been fast enough to matter in the numbers. IPOs this month have raised $5.4 billion so far, and the weighted-average return for the year’s U.S. IPO class has jumped to 21% from 4.6% about a week ago. That compares with a 4.2% return for the benchmark S&P 500 Index, a sign that new listings are drawing attention just as traders see a better place to put money to work.
This week alone, the expected IPOs are seeking to raise nearly $2 billion in aggregate. X-Energy Inc. is targeting $814 million, while artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc. and Blackstone Inc.’s data-center acquisition vehicle are each expected to target at least $2 billion. Bill Ackman’s closed-end fund IPO is scheduled to price on April 28, and his fund and hedge fund seek to raise as much as $10 billion, underscoring how quickly the market has reopened for bigger deals.
For bankers and issuers, the logic is simple: get in front of SpaceX while the window is still open. Bob Doll put it bluntly: if he were any company trying to attract IPO investors, he would rather do it before that deal comes. Dan Klausner said there has been “a lot more price discipline,” and that “success begets success,” with peers that price and trade well making it easier for the next company to go public at a reasonable discount.
The rush also reflects a practical deadline. Financial statements for companies seeking to go public will need a refresh later in May, which could slow the flow if offerings slip. Sumit Mukherjee said there are four IPOs in market slated to price this week and eight additional IPOs publicly filed last week, adding that with continued strength in equity markets, he expects ECM to remain highly active in the near term.
That leaves SpaceX as the deal the market is organizing around. The company’s planned June offering is being framed as record-breaking, and a separate analysis of the spacex ipo has already raised the possibility that it could test the $1 trillion space bet. For now, the clearest sign of its power is what is happening before it arrives: companies are hurrying to price, investors are chasing fresh returns, and a market that was quiet not long ago is suddenly trying to fit everything in before the biggest listing of the year lands.