Bain Looks To IPO Blue Coat Despite ‘Moribund’ Market

The somnolent IPO market, for tech firms, may wake up. A little bit.

As Fortune reported late last week, Bain Capital is seeking a “quick turnaround” on a $2.4 billion investment it made when it took Blue Coat private just last year. Now, the latter firm has filed to go public.

This would be only the third tech firm to come public in 2016 thus far — the most lackadaisical IPO market for tech firms since just after the financial crisis. The prospects may not be all that spectacular for a strong bounce, as the financial publication noted that Dell spinoff SecureWorks has essentially been a busted IPO.

The Blue Coat filing did not state just how many shares the firm would see or give away an offering price range. In the meantime, Renaissance Capital said that it expects the deal to ultimately come in at least $500 million.

The cybersecurity realm has also been fraught with plummeting stock prices, an aftereffect of a slowdown in the sector and competition heating up as companies chase new business. Many names, such as Palo Alto Networks, have been cut by double-digit percentages, even counting recent rebounds off winter lows.

Blue Coat may (or may not) suffer a similar fate. The company’s sales have been down year over year, for the 12 months that ended in April, to $598 million, down from $631 million. Of course, that includes writedowns on deferred revenues, while stripping that impact out shows that sales were up to $755 million from $643 million in the year earlier period.