The IPO process is typically reserved for younger companies—corporate whipper-snappers looking to grow their budding business or cash out the seed capital that preceded their debut on the public markets. It’s rare these days that a company going public was founded the same year as the Chicago World Fair.*
UL Solutions Inc.’s (NYSE: ULS) origins come from the planning and design of the 1893 event, and the company has become a ubiquitous, albeit hidden, part of our everyday lives.
A business with a 130-year history clearly has some staying power, and its IPO appears to have some things investors would like. As with so many other IPOs, though, the devil is in the details. In this case, a really weird corporate structure.
Here’s my knee-jerk reaction to UL’s prospectus.
*(Sidebar: I can’t mention the Chicago World Fair without mentioning The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. It is simultaneously a great true crime story and a meticulous recount of the Fair’s planning. I don’t know how the two blended into a good read, but it worked.)
Shoutout to Koyfin for their data and charts. Koyfin has become an integral part of how I screen for, track, and analyze companies. It has made the analysis process much faster thanks to having a decade of data at my fingertips instead of manually going through stacks of quarterly and annual filings.
Up your analysis process by Signing up for Koyfin. Click on the link below and receive 10% off your annual subscription.
Disclaimer: I have an affiliate partnership with Koyfin and receive compensation if you sign up via the link above. It helps me fund this endeavor. I would still recommend using it even if I didn’t have this partnership because it’s an awesome product, but I’d be stupid to turn down a revenue opportunity. You get a discount, Koyfin gets new business, and I get a commission. Win-win-win).
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Misfit Alpha to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.