On Thursday, fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant Cava is scheduled to go public at the NYSE. It's the first sizable restaurant play to go public since 2021. It was seeking to sell 14.4 million shares at $17-$19, but Monday morning raising its proposed price range to $19 to $20 a share from $17 to $19. At the midpoint of $19.50 that's a raise of $280.8 million. In the old days , this would have been viewed as a mid-size deal.
However the largest this year, Kenvue, the Johnson & Johnson spinoff, went public in early May and is up 14% since then. It's a long slog back to a 'normal' IPO market As bad as it has been in 2023, it's better than it was in 2022. That year, a measly $7.7 billion was raised, a pittance compared to the 10-year average of $55 billion. At the halfway point this year, about the same amount has been raised as all of last year. IPOs: The great drought Raised in 2023 YTD: $7.