Wall Street can be excused if it’s a little skeptical about RetailMeNot‘s filing for a public offering.

The last time an online coupon operator went public, it turned out to be a disaster. Back in November 2011, Groupon (GRPN) pulled off an IPO, only to have its shares beat up by as much as 62%.

But perhaps Groupon is far back enough in the rear-view mirror for Wall Street to be receptive to another coupon site. Read 

Ahead of last week’s earnings report for Restoration Hardware (RH), I was bullish on the company. As I noted, the earnings expectations were reasonable, and I suspected the company would continue to get a nice boost from the pricing power of its luxury brand.

Plus, the rebound in the real estate market is another tailwind.

And RH did not disappoint. In the quarter, revenues shot up by 38% to $301.3 million and comparable store sales spiked by a staggering 41%, up from 26% in the same period a year ago. Adjusted net income also rose from a loss of $1.3 million — or 6 cents a share — to a profit of $2.3 million — or 4 cents per share. Read 

Envision Healthcare — an outsourced provider of healthcare services — will be hitting the markets soon. The company plans to issue its shares on the NYSE under the ticker “EVH” and the lead underwriters include Goldman Sachs (GS), Barclays (BCS), BofA Merrill Lynch (BAC) and Citi (C).

Why should you care? Well, healthcare is hot these days, so Envision could be too.

The company has a network of over 20,000 physicians, which include 12,000 paramedic technicians. Its services are broad, covering areas like emergency, anesthesiology, hospitalist/inpatient care, radiology and surgery. To organize all this efficiently, the company has a sophisticated medical command center, which helps with tele-medicine, in-home monitoring and patient transportation. Read 

Homebuilder New Home Company could raise up to $173 million in an initial public offering.

The company just filed for an IPO, and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker of “NWHM.” Lead underwriters include Citi (C), JPMorgan (JPM) and Zelman Partners LLC.

The New Home Company certainly is “new,” having started only a few years ago. The founders — which include Larry Webb, Wayne Stelmar, Joseph Davis and Tom Redwitz — invested $10 million of their own money into the venture in August 2009, sensing that the real estate market would eventually rebound and that it was time to pick up properties at dirt-cheap prices. Read 

Last week was a bit of a disappointment in the IPO world, likely in part thanks to the market’s recent volatility. True, network equipment operator Gigamon (GIMO) saw its shares rise by 50% following its offering, but the $1 billion offering of beauty product giant Coty (COTY) was a dud, and Aratana Therapeutics moved its deal back to this week.

This week, Aratana joins five other planned IPOs, with GoGo the most likely to grab investors’ attention. Here’s a quick look at each deal: Aratana Therapeutics

Aratana Therapeutics (PETX) is a development-stage biopharma company that focuses on pet treatments. Its strategy is in-licensing proprietary compounds that have worked for human-based drugs, such as for dealing with pain and cancers. Read 

In the IPO world, it seems to be the year of private equity. Many of the top-performing companies that hit the market have been “boomerangs,” meaning they were part of going-private transactions previously.

Just take a look at this sample: Company Ticker Return Pinnacle Foods PF 26.5% Bright Horizons Family Solutions BFAM 50.2% SeaWorld Entertainment SEAS 35.7% Boise Cascade Co. BCC 25%

Of course, the trend should be no surprise. From 2000 to 2007, there was a huge burst of going-private transactions, led by firms like KKR (KKR), Blackstone Group (BX), Apollo Global Management (APO) and Carlyle Group (CG).
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