On Monday, Birkenstock touted three anchor investors, including Norwegian wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management, which have offered to buy 40% of its IPO.
Instacart's anchor investors bought 61%, while Arm had a slew of tech companies sign up as early investors.So far this year, IPOs floats have been particularly small. Instacart and Klaviyo were just under 8%, Arm a little over 9%, and Cava was a little above 12%, to name a few. That's much smaller than the median 16.7% and average of 18.2% in 2021 , and 22% for both in 2020, according to data compiled by University of Florida professor Jay Ritter.
Notably, median floats were historically larger before 2021, mostly staying above 20% since 1980."Oddity is an example of a company that utilized a short float, cornerstone investors and a long marketing period prior to the roadshow while waiting for a window that they could get out," an industry banker tells Axios Pro colleague Richard Collings.
"They had been speaking to investors for a long time and then performed against that, which was helpful to them when they did come to market," he adds."I think we will see the use of anchors as the market opens and I would expect that to decline as the IPO market grows more robust," Lise Buyer, co-founder of IPO adviser Class V Group, tells Axios via email.