Farewell To The Most Widely Anticipated IPO Ever?
If there was ever a more widely anticipated and publicized IPO than PALM, a commenter will have to remind me what it was. [BR: Google?]
As I recall all too well, no CNBC talking head could do a segment without at least a dozen or so mentions of PALM. No guest could be interviewed without being asked about the upcoming offering’s impact on our very existence — no matter the guest’s area of expertise may well have been offshore drilling. Or foreign policy. The hyperventilating, drooling, and shortness of breath was worthy of a brothel. I recall the “Countdown to Palm” timer, a little “bug” in a television’s corner which kept tabs — to the thousandth of a second — of when the market would open, notwithstanding the fact that PALM would have a delayed opening due to all the frenzy. (Note to CNBC: Viewers generally don’t need a countdown timer to anything. We especially don’t need it down to thousdandths of a second, unless you plan to start covering 100m dashes. Thank you.)
It was, we now know, the top of the market.
Now, ten years later, PALM has apparently put itself up for sale.
CNBC, of course, has gone on to obsess about countless other issues over the years.
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April 12th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
The wise words of Warren Buffet:
“Here are a few examples of how we apply Charlie’s thinking at Berkshire:
• Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting their
products may be. In the past, it required no brilliance for people to foresee the fabulous growth
that awaited such industries as autos (in 1910), aircraft (in 1930) and television sets (in 1950). But
the future then also included competitive dynamics that would decimate almost all of the
companies entering those industries. Even the survivors tended to come away bleeding.”
April 12th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
@BR
“If there was ever a more widely anticipated and publicized IPO than PALM, a commenter will have to remind me what it was.”
Netscape. The dumbest IPO ever. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4792365 I’m a total non-financial type guy, and even I was scratching my head over the frenzy at the time.
April 12th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I remember sitting in a hotel room getting ready to head out on a business meeting as Blackstone went public. They were hyping that one so much, I kind of got the feeling that the market run was going to be over very shortly.
A few months later…
April 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
One has to wonder if McNamee is selling into today’s nonsensical ramp…
April 12th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
as far as the most widely anticipated IPO, I’d have to go with PALM. The PALM IPO at the time was viewed as ‘guarenteed free money’. Don’t forget, Palm Pilots were the first real big PDA — I remember tech geeks salivating at someone’s new Palm Pilot.
Google was widely anticipated, but was also viewed with a lot of derision. I was stuck in a Colorado hotel room with a head cold on the day it went public and watched a lot of CNBC that day. A lot of people were slamming Google’s IPO auction process as a failure. Prechter wrote about it being the secondary top of the market. However, it was perhaps the only IPO I’ve ever seen Buffett talk about.
Netscape was more of a big surprise to Wall Street — it did, no question, get the party started on the IPO mania. Everyone wanted to buy a ‘netscape’. It was not really so anticipated … but was heavily talked about afterwards.
Steve
April 12th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Palm needed to quit making hardware and let WebOS be used on other manufacturer’s phones. After reviewing other articles, this strategy sounds like a good idea for consumers, since WebOS seems to be an amazing operating system. For Palm to just make hardware was just clearly insufficient.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
most widely anticipated IPO ever was letter F. I mean really guys.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Isn’t the same giddy and frenzy going on as we speak now with do-no-wrong Apple? Just when you think that you are winning the rat race along come faster rats.
April 12th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I remember a few years ago, there were a couple of IPOs in Hong Kong that were a 100x oversubscribed. The comparison was then with PALM’s IPO.
April 12th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I don’t recall the IPO, but I can’t imagine a more appropriately name equity than this Canadian oil and gas stock that I owned during the late 70′s / early 80′s.
Amalgamated Bonanza
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19770810&id=JgsyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1qEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=980,1945843
Scroll around the page; a nice blast from the past.
April 12th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
Barry, I remember both Visa and AT&T Wireless having IPO’s that were considered a MUCH bigger triumph than PALM. Perhaps I am incorrect, but I remember everyone wanted a piece of those companies esp since people knew what they did.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Yahoo was a pretty big “event” too…
April 12th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I was a shareholder in COMS (3 Com) at the time it spun of Palm. To my surprise, COMS topped out at over $100/share. I don’t know how many shares traded at that lofty level, but I missed a chance to sell and get out!
April 13th, 2010 at 1:53 am
This one actually hurts me. I only care about Excel and Palm delivers the best mobile Excel out. It’s funny that I’m still sitting around waiting for the pocket PC ten years later when the IPad is out as well as all others. Just give me some really good mobile Excel. I hope they don’t die.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Visa’s (NYSE:V) IPO was also eagerly anticipated in 2008.