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Companies on deck to go public in the U.S. are powering forward with unconventional IPO plans despite the lingering government shutdown, taking many on Wall Street by surprise. Travel software startup Navan Inc. and electric plane-maker Beta Technologies Inc., two candidates for initial public offerings before the November Thanksgiving holiday, offer contrasting examples of why the fix offered by the shuttered regulator -- a 20-day marketing period -- is growing in popularity, with three more companies late Friday joining the group, for a total of seven. Bankers and investors agree that the path to going public during the shutdown requires some creativity, as well as the willingness to venture into uncharted territory. With little sign of negotiations in Washington as the shutdown nears three full weeks, and a stock market near its record high, IPO candidates are increasingly likely to see whether the frameworks advanced by Navan and Beta could work for them, too. "IPO activity during the shutdown has been higher than I would've anticipated," said Gregor Feige, co-head of Americas equity capital markets at UBS Group AG. "My sense is the deals that are going have done extensive testing-the-waters meetings, while others perhaps have a bit of fatigue around the IPO process overall and are looking to go sooner than later." Navan has had a long path to a listing, having been close to confidentially filing IPO paperwork more than three years ago, Bloomberg News reported at the time. The company has opted to use a tight price range of $24 to $26, and is expected to begin formally marketing the deal with investors this week before selling shares. Navan and some of its shareholders are selling stock in the IPO raising as much as $960 million in aggregate, with some of the proceeds earmarked to repay the company's outstanding debt. Beta is a relatively unproven bet on a new technology. The electric aircraft company reported less than $20 million in revenue for the first six months of this year as net losses grew to $183 million from $137 million in the same period in 2024, a filing shows. The $6 spread on its price range of $27 to $33 per share is wider than Navan's. Still, prospective investors' confidence is likely to be buoyed by the presence of five cornerstone investors, who have signed on to take as much as $300 million of what would be an $825 million raise at the top of the price range. With a combined $2.9 billion if the offerings price at the top of their respective ranges, the deals would substantially add to an already-solid year. U.S. IPOs have raised $34.7 billion through Oct. 17, excluding financial vehicles such as blank-check firms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's already above the total raised in all of 2024. For companies that remain publicly on file with U.S. regulators but not yet with marketing underway, such as Andersen Group Inc., the tax and advisory firm led by former partners of the firm that collapsed as a result of the Enron scandal, and BitGo Holdings Inc., the debate between pushing ahead with an IPO that uses the current workaround is partly a question of whether going public before Thanksgiving is better than risking a wait until next year. "If things align where the shutdown ends and there's time around the holidays you could see some companies push ahead, but we're probably looking at the vast majority opening up in 2026," said Shari Mager, a partner with KPMG's deal advisory practice. "It's such a short window between Thanksgiving and Christmas." For now, dealmakers are potentially looking at a very busy stretch starting in the end of October when these 20-day windows end, and debuts that would have been spread throughout the month -- plus any more that are tempted to tap the SEC's workaround -- cram into early November. "The idea that it's a relatively favorable market is definitely weighing on the desire to just go out and take care of it now," said Hillary Holmes, co-chair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's capital markets practice. "If right now is an acceptable market, you'll take a certain amount of risk or even downside economic impact to just get the deal done at an acceptable level because that uncertainty can bring a lot of downside, especially if it's months out."
