RE: whats with the IPOJust so you know, Gibson is currently closing a secondary offering, not an IPO. The shares (over 16 million) are being sold by R/C Guitar Coöperatief U.A. who own a whack of GEI shares. The reason 19.25 works for them is that it would have been difficult to have received that price by selling 16m shares on the open market. In turn, for those institutions that participated in the scondary offering, they couldn't have purchased large #s of GEI stock without bumping the price up significantly. Keep in mind that when the offering was announced GEI was trading at well over $20 a share so the $19.25 offering price represented a healthy discount to the market.
BUT, for us penny pinching retail investors whose purchases don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, this does represent a bit of an arbitrage that's well worth (in my opinion) playing. Gibson is doing very well thse days.
I would expect more secondary offerings in the future as companies like R/C Guitar Coöperatief U.A. who have significant holdings of GEI unload their shares in a controlled, well-managed manner.
Hope this helps.
Best of luck.
Walden