Qimonda IPO Headache

The latest IPO to run into trouble is Qimonda, a planned $1.1 billion chip off the Infineon Technologies(IFX) block.

The investment banks underwriting the initial public offering were having a hard time selling the deal to investors, market sources said. Shares of Qimonda, a maker of computer memory chips, are scheduled to price Tuesday evening and begin trading Wednesday morning.

Going into the IPO, Infineon was looking to price shares of Qimonda at between $16 and $18. But two sources say it appears the shares will now price at between $14 and $15.

The Qimonda deal is faring so poorly with institutional investors that there's some speculation the deal may not get done or may have to be postponed.

A person answering the phone at Qimonda's U.S. headquarters refused to transfer the call to a company spokesman.

A broker with a big Wall Street firm said the offering is being listed internally as an "open ticket" deal -- meaning brokers are free to put as many customers as possible into the offering. The broker says he's keeping his clients away from the Qimonda deal because he suspects it will trade poorly after its debut.

An open-ticket deal is one in which there's no limitation on how many shares a broker can have allocated to his or her customers. Normally, shares in an IPO are hard to come by because so many investors are looking to get their hands on them. The fact that there's no restriction on share allocations at this firm is an indication the deal is not in high demand.

This summer has been a bad one for the IPO market. Since mid-June, nearly 20 companies hoping to tap the public market have either postponed or canceled plans for an IPO. Other deals, such as the one for investment firm Cowen Group(COWN), have priced below the projected range and then traded lower in the aftermarket.