Fresh from Gigamon IPO, lawyer sees uptick in stock debuts

Goodwin Proctor Richard Kline represented the underwriters in Gigamon's IPO last week.

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Cromwell Schubarth: Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal; Email | Twitter | Google+

Fresh from representing the underwriters in last week's big Gigamon IPO, Goodwin Proctor lawyer Richard Kline says that a number of companies are getting ready to go public.
"It's about as good as it's been," said Kline, who has worked on public offerings for 14 years with his current firm and with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati before that, in an interview last week.
His former firm represented Gigamon in the offering which hit the IPO target and then saw the stock jump by about 50 percent in its market debut.
The IPO business was busier back in the late 1990s, but Kline told me he doubts it will ever hit those levels again.
"There were companies in those days that were accessing the public markets that really weren’t ready to be public companies," he said. "I think right now it’s a strong receptive market that’s as strong as it’s been in the last few years. But it doesn’t feel reckless. It feels like there’s still going to be an ability for a lot of companies to access the public markets.
Here are more excerpts from our conversation:
As a lawyer, you’re not involved in the pricing side of the deal, right?
We’re mostly not. The pricing is driven by the underwriters and the company and the pricing committee on behalf of the company. Company counsel does get involved on the pricing committee call. But it’s generally a discussion between the pricing committee and the underwriters getting feedback from investors. There are sometimes decisions to make as to whether or not you try to price a dollar higher which may mean you lose some larger ticket investors that are viewed as good long term investors.