On Monday, June 23, 2003, many reported Integrated Alarm Services Group (IASG proposed) (Lead manager: Friedman Billings Ramsey); Maguire Properties (MPG: chart) (co-lead managers: Credit Suisse First Boston and Citigroup), and Molina Healthcare (NYSE: MOH proposed) (co-lead managers: Banc of America and CIBC World Markets) were to make their debuts during the week of June 23. And American Financial Realty Trust (AFR: chart) (co-lead managers: Banc of America and Friedman Billings Ramsey) and AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS proposed) (co-lead managers: Morgan Stanley and Citigroup) were to make their debuts during the week of June 30, 2003.

As most followers of the IPO market know, last week belonged to the real estate investment trusts, or REITS. Despite what was reported, American Financial Realty and Maguire Properties strutted their stuff down the new-issues runway. These were the only companies to go public. Most of the new-issues calendars proved to be wrong on three of the five deals mentioned.

The similarities in the various IPO calendars leads one to believe that one service did the reporting and fed the information to the others. In other words, one dog barked at something and the rest barked at the noise.

Here’s what the differences were:

Banc of America Securities was the book runner for two deals -- American Financial Realty (timing error No. 1) and Molina Healthcare (timing error No. 2.) The proposed offering dates got crisscrossed. American Financial was priced on June 24 -- not for the week of June 30, 2003, as reported by most. Molina Healthcare is scheduled to go public this week -- not during the week of June 23, 2003, as reported by most.

Friedman Billings Ramsey has been carrying the Integrated Alarm Services IPO (timing error No. 3) as “to be determined” for quite some time. You can check out Friedman Billings’ Web site for confirmation. As co-lead manager of American Financial, Friedman Billings had posted this IPO on its Web site for June 24, 2003.

Everybody was in agreement on the timing of the other two deals -- AXIS Capital Holdings, which is on co-lead manager Morgan Stanley’s Web site, and Maguire Properties, which was on co-lead manager Credit Suisse First Boston’s Web site.

So whom do you trust?

Generally the services are accurate. But mistakes happen. Last week’s faux pas were corrected by Tuesday, June 24, 2003. For investors able to buy stock on the offering of IPOs, the participating banker has this information. For those looking to trade the IPOs in the aftermarket, the best source is the financial newswires, which report the offering terms the evening the IPOs are priced.