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A robust year for initial public offerings including DoorDash and Airbnb may just be setting the stage for a strong slate of companies listing stock in 2021. Dreamstime
Rabid investor demand caused shares of companies like
DoorDash (ticker: DASH) and
Airbnb (ABNB) to roughly double in their first trading days, showing that investors are itching to get a piece of newly public companies. And that surge came near the end of what has proved to be a strong IPO cycle.
There were more than 200 IPOs in 2020, raising a combined $78.1 billion, eclipsing 2019’s mark of 160 IPOs that raised $46.3 billion, data from Renaissance Capital show. Not to mention, the roughly equal number of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, that also made their debut on stock exchanges this year.
‘Blowing in the wind’ View(s):
In the early 1990s, there was an enterprising group of Sri Lankans who helped install small solar power units in the homes of farmers, paving the way for their children to study at night. The group was also involved in a solar project financially backed by a multilateral agency to help dozens of farmers to whom this low-cost, subsidized power unit sticking out of their rooftops, was an out-of-this world development. The group later sold its interests to the multinational, Shell Company.
It was also a time when there were crippling power-cuts owing to a prolonged drought, during the tenure of Anuruddha Ratwatte who was Power and Energy Minister, with the country depending on hydro power, long before gas turbines and other energy sources came into being.