Twitter raised the price range for its initial public offering Monday as it seeks to raise up to $1.75 billion, signaling strong demand for the most closely watched IPO since Facebook’s (FB) in 2012.
The float comes during a red-hot market for IPOs, which have benefited as equity markets continue to climb and uncertainty has largely subsided around the debt ceiling crisis and political gridlock in Washington.
The microblogging network expects to sell 70 million shares at $23 to $25 each, up from a prior estimate of $17 to $20, it said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The new pricing would value the company at up to $13.6 billion, compared with up to about $11 billion under the previous range.
The IPO is set to price Wednesday, with shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
Twitter’s IPO is fully subscribed, meaning it has attracted more than enough investor interest, according to a source familiar with the offering.
The company plans to close the books on the IPO a day earlier than scheduled — Tuesday at noon Eastern time — because of strong demand for its shares, according to two sources with knowledge of the process.
“This is not a surprise,” said senior analyst Kim Forrest of Fort Pitt Capital Group, which manages $1.5 billion in assets.
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“The people underwriting the IPO have a responsibility to the company selling these shares to extract the highest price it can. It has to walk a fine line to make it attractive to investors.”
Twitter management has been traveling the United States over the last week, speaking with potential investors.
The company also said Monday that it had received a letter from IBM (IBM) alleging Twitter infringed at least three U.S. patents held by the Armonk, N.Y.-based tech giant.
This year is shaping up to be the strongest for U.S. IPOs since 2007, with more than 178 companies going public, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Goldman Sachs (GS) is leading Twitter’s IPO, alongside Morgan Stanley (MS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM).
Even though they never sold their collection, the Vogels followed a classic investment strategy: Instead of going for a quick profit, they purchased art with the intention of keeping it for the long term. In , a 2008 film about the pair, Dorothy Vogel acknowledged that the art she and Herb collected was hard to appreciate: "These things you have to live with. The more you live with it, the more you see it, it grows on you. It’s something that you don’t like right at first."
Rule 1: Buy for the Long Term
Talking about her buying strategy, Dorothy Vogel later recounted, "We had no restrictions on what we bought. We just bought what we liked." Laura Paulson, deputy chairman for the Americas at Christie’s auction house, suggests that this cuts to the heart of the Vogels’ success. "They were divorced from any sense of monetary value," she argues. "They wanted to connect, to be part of something."
In this regard, the Vogels’ art purchases seem very different from the quick buy-and-sell strategy of most stock pickers. "Not every stock you buy will be a great pick," Paulson notes. For the Vogels, the key consideration wasn’t the short-term cost of their art but the value that it added to their lives — a value that bore considerable long-term fruit.
PHOTO: Herb and Dorothy inside their Manhattan apartment
Rule 2: Buy for Love, Not Profit.
For shrewd investors, knowledge can be as important as capital. That was certainly the case with the Vogels, who were intimately aware of the movements and trends of the art market. As Dorothy Vogel recounted, "We came home from work and … we went to a gallery opening or we went to a studio. We went out every night."
In the process, they became aware of most of the cutting-edge artists in New York City. "They really embedded themselves in the art world," Paulson says.
That close analysis was a big part of the Vogels’ buying strategy. Given their limited funds, the pair had to be extremely savvy. "Their buys had to be significant," Paulson notes. "Every purchase represented an extraordinary investment of time and energy."
Rule 3: Know the Market
Among investors, the search for undiscovered market opportunities — "blue-water investments" — is a constant preoccupation. The Vogels demonstrated its applicability in the art world with their determination to find the most cutting-edge artists. Originally, that was a function of their finances: In the 1960s, when the pair started collecting, minimalist art was only beginning to emerge and was largely ignored by the collecting public. "They focused on what they could afford," says Paulson.
When minimalist art caught the public eye and went up in value, the Vogels progressed to new artists and innovations, which enabled them to stay ahead of the curve — and maximize the impact of their modest funds. It also didn’t hurt that the art they chose to collect, "tough art," as Herb Vogel called it, took a long time to catch on.
Rule 4: Look for Investments That Are New and Original
When it comes to researching an investment, data analysis can only take an investor so far. The next step — actually visiting the company and getting to know its employees — can reveal depths of information that would otherwise be unavailable.
Not surprisingly, the Vogels often visited studios. In fact, as artist Lucio Pozzi later recalled, "The two first people who came to my studio were the Vogels. They offered to buy some pieces and I was happy. It was probably one of the sole sales in my first six months or something!" The Vogels’ interest in Pozzi’s art — and willingness to meet with him on his home turf — formed the basis of a lasting relationship.
Not only did their studio visits give the Vogels an opportunity to buy art at lower prices, but it also gave them a unique insight into the next step in each artist’s evolution long before it hit the market.
Rule 5: Go to the Source
In business, it’s hard to overestimate the simple power of a handshake or a face-to-face conversation. In this regard, the Vogels were masters: Over their decades of collecting, the pair built close relationships with hundreds of artists and art world professionals. Ultimately, these relationships bore fruit with a host of unique opportunities.
A good example of this is the pair’s friendship with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, two artists who became famous for their huge environmental installations. When they met the pair, the Vogels quickly realized that they couldn’t afford any of Christo’s art. However, when Jeanne-Claude later needed a pet sitter, she offered the Vogels a free piece of art. "Herbie said, ‘No, no, no, we don’t want it free," she later recalled "And I said, well it’s not exactly free…" In return for watching the pair’s cat for a summer, the Vogels got a collage of the Valley Curtain, one of Christo’s most famous works.
PHOTO: Herb and Dorothy at a Richard Tuttle art opening.
Rule 6: Build Relationships
Many investors buy stocks of companies that they love — choices that may not always pay off. That was certainly true of the Vogels. "The Vogels were always very loyal about the art they bought," Paulson notes. "But as a collector, it’s better to be discerning. Getting a representative history of the artist’s development doesn’t necessarily help increase the overall value of a collection."
Even so, the Vogels’ devotion to their favorite artists underlay their relationships and helps to explain how the pair were able to continue buying works even after those artists became firmly established. Many artists were flattered by the early attention: As artist James Siena later recounted, "What distinguished them from other collectors on one level was that they really wanted to see everything … It almost started to seem as though I was talking to curators rather than collectors."
PHOTO: The artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (back) pose with collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel as they visit the National Gallery of Art for the exhibition "Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the Vogel Collection."
Rule 7: Stick With Your Favorites
Stephen Antonakos
Drawing
University Museum, Southern Illinois University
Title: Five Incomplete Circles
Daryl Trivieri
Painting: acrylic on canvas
68 1/2 x 68 inches
Date: 1985
Title: The Head Trip
Daryl Trivieri
Painting: acrylic on canvas
10.125 H X 14 W X 0.5 D
Date: 1989
Title: Wall Street
Lynda Benglis
Sculpture: Plaster, bronze, wire mesh, gesso, lacquer, gold leaf
21 x 6 x 3 3/4 in.
Date: 1969
Title: Untitled
Don Hazlitt
Collage: Oil and canvas collage on board
Date: 1988
Gift of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Title: Red Sun
Joe Andoe
Painting: lacquered acrylic on paper
9 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.
Date: n.d.
is a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Title: Untitled
Cheryl Laemmle
Painting: oil on canvas
30 1/4 x 40 1/8 in.
Date: 1988
Title: Specters in the Forest
Will Barnet
Drawing: graphite and charcoal on vellum tracing paper
29 15/16 x 42 in. (irregular)
Date: 1977
Title: Study for the Vogels (Herb with hands on chin)
Mark Kostabi
Ink on paper
12 x 9"
Date: N.D.
Title: Untitled
Claudia de Monte
Paper mache (celluclay), acrylic, glitter
Date: 1980
Gift of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Title: Claudia in Persia
Daryl Trivieri
Drawing: charcoal on paper
22 1/2 x 30 3/16 inches
Date: 1988
Title: Untitled (portrait of the Vogels)
“Most of us go through the world, never seeing anything. Then you meet somebody like Herb and Dorothy, who have eyes that see.” — Richard Tuttle, artist
Watch the trailer to Herb & Dorothy (available below). Herb & Dorothy tells the extraordinary tale of a seemingly ordinary couple who filled their humble one-bedroom New York apartment with more than 4,000 works of art over a 45-year period. Filmmaker Megumi Sasaki turns her lens on the Vogels during a critical period of transition for the couple and their cherished collection.
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