New companies listing on the sharemarket? Rare.
Big brands, with high ‘on the street’ visibility doing an IPO? Even rarer.
So there was intense interest and wildly divergent views on the potential success of restaurant chain Guzman Y Gomex (GYG) when it listed last Thursday.
In fact, it was a bit like those Rorschach ‘inkblot’ tests, people saw in it a mixture of exuberance, fear, potentially dubious numbers, hope… there wasn’t a consensus but investors were passionate about their take on it.
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The opening price was set at $22, which almost instantly rocketed to $30. The stock ended yesterday’s session at $29.49, up +1.7% for the day.
But it’s not over, with reports in the Financial Review it has been targeted by short-sellers.
(‘Shorting’ is paying a fee to borrowing shares from funds that own them, selling them and then buying back at a lower prices. It is essentially a bet that prices will fall).
It’s all part of life in the big city. While the big institutional investors and funds like Aware Super have big holdings in GYG, the popularity of the retail brand means lots of small investors have got into it too.