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New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin believes that the IPO of Mediterranean fast casual restaurant chain Cava (NYSE:CAVA) on Thursday is a positive sign for the IPO market to recover from its recent drought.
“This is an amazing sign for that IPO window,” Martin told CNBC in an interview on Thursday, where Cava stock opened up 91% above its $22 IPO price and closed the day up almost 100% near $44 a share.
Martin explained that companies that have been looking at IPOs for the past 18 months are beginning to have conversations with the stock exchange.
“Those companies, some of which have been in our pipeline for more than 18 months if not longer, they are starting to have conversations with us about, OK, is now the time to start to gear up and go,” Martin told the business network. “And clearly, the IPOs that we’ve seen at the NYSE this quarter alone are encouraging signs, and they are really leading those conversations with private companies.”
When Martin was asked minutes after the Cava IPO launched on Thursday if it would likely lead to more conversations, she answered, “My phone is already ringing.”
“I think today really shows the greens shoots that are existing in the IPO markets,” Martin said. “We are seeing a lot of green shoots here in a thawing of the IPO markets.”
Other notable companies reported to be considering IPOs or actively planning them are Arm (ARMHF), Stripe (STRIP), Reddit (REDDIT), Instacart (ICART), Chime, Fanatics ,(FANA), Discord (DSCD), Databricks and Panera.
“Clearly energy, particularly anything around clean energy. the green energy transition, that is having a very positive reception from investors at the moment.” NYSE’s Martin added. “Tech still has a lil bit of a ways to go, but we are really encouraged by the signs of demand from the institutional investors to even welcome a large IPO to the market.”