Stumbling Into a Dark and Lonely I.P.O. Market

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped as much as 3.7 percent this morning, bringing the index to a record decline of 47 percent year to date.

Fine time to go public, wouldn't you say?

Grand Canyon Education evidently thinks so. Its initial public offering Thursday morning ended a 15-week drought in the I.P.O. market, but there was very little celebrating after the company's C.E.O. rang that Nasdaq opening bell.

Last night, Grand Canyon lowered its price range from $16 to $18 per share to $12 to $14 and it ended up pricing it this morning at $12. When shares started trading, however, the price fell even further, to as low as $9.49.

Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are lead underwriters on the deal. Grand Canyon Education is a for-profit, online university based in Phoenix, Arizona with a focus on the areas of education, business, and healthcare. It also bills itself as Arizona's only private Christian university. It relies heavily on students using federal student aid under the Title IV programs.

Grand Canyon's ticker is LOPE, and it took a little digging to figure out why. Its mascot is an antelope, and they affectionately call themselves the Lopes.

If things don't improve for the Lopes, perhaps Grand Canyon ought to consider changing its mascot to a more lovable creature, like a Shiba Inu puppy, perhaps.

by Megan Barnett