Hambrecht Takes IPOS Public

OpenIPO (http://www.openipo.com) is WR Hambrecht & Co.'s hot new electronic underwriting service. But don't take our word for it. American Century and Instinet thought enough of it to tuck a few dollars of their own into the product. The concept: allow retail participation in IPOs. (Andover.net will be the third firm to try it.) Currently, shares in high-quality IPOs are allocated among large institutions and those that enjoy close ties to the underwriters, excluding smaller institutions and retail investors. And share prices are often discounted in order to create an initial artificial surge in performance. OpenIPO, which was designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist William Vickrey, is supposed to create an even playing field. That, say Hambrecht officials, should establish a price that reflects what people are honestly willing to pay for a stock, instead of a randomly dictated figure. Fleishman Hillard's Joe Carberry, the account supervisor for OpenIPO, says, "[OpenIPO] is essentially a democratized form of the IPO wherein everyone who wants shares can get them. Access is determined not by who you are but by what you are willing to pay. This way, people who really want the stock get it, and these people make the best shareholders."