Quantinuum, the quantum computing company spun out of Honeywell, watched its stock tumble to $54 on its second day of trading after the underwriting syndicate stopped defending the $60 IPO price. That’s a 10% haircut from the offering price, and a brutal reversal from a debut that briefly touched $71.35.
The debut looked great, then it didn’t
Quantinuum priced its IPO at $60 per share on June 3, selling 28 million shares to raise $1.68 billion. That price came in above the initially expected range of $53 to $55, a sign that investor demand was strong enough to push the company to upsize the deal.
On June 4, the stock opened at $68, a healthy 13% pop above the offering price. It climbed as high as $71.35 during the session before settling back to close at $60.38. A gain of 0.6% from the IPO price.
Then came the second day. With J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriters, stepping back from their stabilization efforts, the stock slid to $54. That means anyone who bought shares at the open on day one at $68 was sitting on a loss of more than 20% within roughly 24 hours.
