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October 19, 2005

Today was BOT and paid for, Wed., Oct. 19, 2005, 3:52 PM

Today BOT hit the market with an IPO on the NYSE, priced at $54. Opening trade $80.31. High trade shortly thereafter $86.75. Last $83.00.

I have read so many articles in the mass media on CBOT, including how many years old they are, yada, yada. But nowhere do I find the number of issued and outstanding shares.

One article out of the first six I read said that the IPO represented 6.1 pct. Another said there were 3.19 shares in the IPO. When you have to scratch for important details, you know the providers are withholding them. So much for transparency in markets.

I guess there are 52.3 million shares out, and I read that 2004 returned $128 million in net cash flow (before taxes and goodness knows what else) from gross revenue of $380 million.

So I calculate the market cap at $86.75 to be $4.54 billion, which would be 35.5 times cash flow. Not even private equity gets to do deals so rich. Even Nasdaq (NDAQ) has a market cap of just $2.33 billion on cash flow of $$109 million ($224 mil free cash flow), and NDAQ is trading at 3.33 times sales vs a P/S for BOT of 14.3.

But this is a BOT day. You have to hand it to the Street. They know how to make coin.

And I see the Dow is now up +117. Somebody's making coin there too because these guys & girls were the ones who taught me to sell into strength.

Posted by Posted by Bill Cara on October 19, 2005 03:54:34 PM | Category: Cara Today in the Market , Init Public Offering (IPO)

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