Initial Public Offerings

Interested in riding the rails? How about owning them? Mendocino County's biggest tourist attraction, the 113-year-old Skunk Train, is offering investors a chance to buy a chunk of California history. Strapped for cash to rehabilitate the train and tracks, the train's 21 owners--a grass-roots collection of local businesspeople and train workers--are hoping to raise $4.6 million in what is called a DPO, or direct public offering, by selling stock through its Web site, http://www.skunktrain.com.

Robert Greenberg isn't waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's in the middle of structuring a first-time stock offering for the second hip shoe company he has founded in the last two decades. Manhattan Beach-based Skechers USA Inc., the shoemaker he co-founded in 1992 with his son Michael, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, or IPO, of as much as $115 million through BT Alex. Brown & Sons. Greenberg helped start L.A.

Corona del Mar-based Shopping.com plunged 61% to well below its initial public offering price after Waldron & Co. of Irvine, the Internet retailer's underwriter and biggest market maker, stopped trading its stock. Shopping.com, which sells a variety of products, also said it is seeking to raise more than $20 million. The shares fell $8.88 to close at $5.75, making it the biggest percentage decliner in U.S. markets. The company went public in November at $9 a share.

Despite recent jitters on Wall Street, GeoCities raised the price for its initial public stock offering to $17--more than 20% above the original estimate. The Santa Monica firm, which gives free World Wide Web home pages to about 2 million "homesteaders" and makes money by selling advertising on those pages, originally planned to go public at between $12 and $14.

If you wonder what it's like to run a company that's had one of the worst-performing initial public offerings of the year, just ask Colin Dyne. In January, Dyne sold the public shares in the downtown Los Angeles firm he built: Tag-It Pacific Inc., a maker of shopping bags, eyeglass cases and leather and paper tags for the likes of Guess and Kenneth Cole. Investors bought a 50% stake in the company, purchasing 1.7 million shares at $4 each, raising $6.7 million.

Neuberger & Berman, known for its stable of value-oriented mutual funds, is banking that there are enough value-oriented stock pickers in today's market to justify an initial public offering. The venerable New York money management firm said Wednesday that it intends to sell stock to the public, joining a list of more than a dozen mutual fund companies that have either gone public or recently announced plans to do so.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., the biggest investment bank partnership, disclosed financial details of its trading business that reveal its earnings could be more volatile than those of rivals. The 129-year-old firm, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell stock for the first time, said net revenue from trading and investing its own money in companies and real estate totaled $2.58 billion in the first half of the year. That was 47% of net revenue.

Goldman, Sachs & Co., the nation's biggest investment banking partnership, on Monday disclosed details of its trading business that reveal its earnings could be more volatile than those of rivals. The 129-year-old firm, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing related to the company's planned initial public stock offering, said net revenue from trading and investing its own money in companies and real estate totaled $2.58 billion in the first half of the year. That was 47% of net revenue.

* Seagram Co. filed with the SEC to sell its Tropicana juice business in the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history. Seagram disclosed plans in May for the sale, which will raise as much as $3.6 billion.