IPOS: INITIALLY, PUBLIC OFF-PUTTING

The robust IPO market caught the Asian flu along with the stock market last summer and took to its bed for a couple of months.

Most notable invalid: Goldman Sachs Group LP, which in June announced plans for an initial public offering for October, a sign many investors took as a market top.

Actually, Goldman was a bit late. The market peaked in July, then plunged, and the white-shoe investment bank backed out in late September. As the market approached another all-time high in late November, Goldman announced it is considering going public early this year.

In October, mutual fund company Neuberger & Berman LLC aborted its IPO, and Kansas City Southern Industries Inc., a railroad company, delayed spinning off its financial services unit, which includes Denver’s Janus Capital Corp. and Berger Associates Inc.

Through July the market was averaging 44 IPOs a month. In August, the volume dropped to 19, and September and October combined for only eight – the lowest back-to-back number in almost 20 years, according to John Fitzgibbon, editor of the IPO Reporter.

But late in the year the market tottered back to its August levels, buoyed mostly by Internet-related offerings, like eBay Inc., the-globe.com Inc., EarthWeb Inc. and Computer Literacy Inc.

“Everyone thought rigor mortis had set in,” says Randall Roth, an analyst with Renaissance Capital, a consultancy in Greenwich, Conn. “But then the market came back, saying `We’re not dead yet.”‘

One asset manager who didn’t back down when things got bad was Mario Gabelli, whose Rye, N.Y., firm manages $15.5 million. He went ahead with filing for an IPO, despite the scary market.