The $200-million initial public offering of Houston-based Mariner Energy LLC, which will trade on Nasdaq as MEGY, was still waiting to price in early December and expected to be on the bench for a bit, while equity investors remained cool to E&P stocks. "Nobody wants to do [E&P] equity right now," says Bob Morris, a PaineWebber Inc. E&P analyst based in New York. The firm is a co-underwriter of the Mariner deal, along with Banc of America Securities LLC, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Petrie Parkman & Co. The lead underwriter is Credit Suisse First Boston. CS First Boston led the late-September Spinnaker Exploration Co. IPO, which presold at $14.50 a share-under the $16 to $18 estimated range. "It gave us some concern," said Mariner chief financial officer Frank Pici. Morris said, "Psychologically, people don't believe [$27 oil] will stick. People believe oil prices will come down." E&P stocks "don't even reflect $18 oil or $2.25 gas." He didn't see an end near. "It may be a while before E&P stocks embark on an upward trend." Not good tidings for Mariner. If December is IPO purgatory, the first quarter can be IPO hell. In the first quarter of 1999, 76 IPOs were priced, according to IPO.com, or about 25 a month, compared with 145 in the second quarter and 149 in the third. "We're ready to go, and we'll stay ready to go for some time," Pici said. Houston-based utility giant Enron Corp.'s private investment business Enron North America Corp. (formerly known as Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corp.) owns more than 80% of Mariner. It didn't need to rush to monetize its interest in Mariner. Another upstream IPO that is in the works is that of Vision Energy Inc., a spinoff of the E&P assets of Houston-based seismic company Seitel Inc. Some time remained before Seitel directors and Vision Energy IPO underwriters-CIBC World Markets, lead, and A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., co-lead-needed to effect the deal. Seitel directors expect to offer the stock in this quarter. "We want to be ready to go when the market looks reasonable," says Horace Calvert, chief operating officer of Seitel. He will become chairman and chief executive of Vision.

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