Honeywell’s quantum company goes public. What investors should know about the IPO

Honeywell-backed Quantinuum saw shares jump as much as 19% to over $71 each in their Thursday debut. The quantum company's stock closed well off those highs, up less than 1%, bringing the market cap to $15.66 billion. Roughly 28 million Quantinuum shares were priced at $60 apiece Wednesday night, above its previous expected range of $53 to $55. The offering raised $1.68 billion. Quantinuum is listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol QNT. The IPO was not only good news for Quantinuum, but also for Club name Honeywell International . The industrial conglomerate benefits as a majority Quantinuum shareholder, retaining 48% of the combined voting power. As Honeywell investors, however, the Club does not get any shares of Quantinuum. The deal was not a spin-off like other recent separations, which brought us FedEx Freight (spun off from FedEx ) and Qnity Electronics (spun off from DuPont ). We do not intend to buy Quantinuum for the portfolio because, like other quantum stocks, it is highly speculative. The Quantinuum deal is a win — albeit incremental — for Honeywell because it gives a valuation to a business that investors previously had to guess what it was worth. Quantinuum was formed back in 2021 through the merger of Honeywell's then-Quantum Solutions group and Cambridge Quantum. It's never been a huge source of revenue for Honeywell, as quantum computing at large is still in its early innings. …