'Push' IPOs

Biotech companies may be getting short shrift from the equity market, but they aren't alone, as there has only been one IPO in the past month - by online auctioneer eBay.

A strategy to get around the lack of investor interest in new issues - albeit one available only to already public companies - is to distribute tracking stock to a company's shareholders. The phenomenon can be likened to the "push" advertising on the Internet, in which users are supplied with information instead of having to track it down themselves...