If you hear a rumbling sound, it may be the sudden stampede of local companies rushing back to the public market.

When Dole Food Co. announced plans this month to go public, it joined a growing number of local companies looking to take advantage of the increasing availability of capital in the markets. The Westlake Village-based fresh fruit and vegetable company filed Aug. 14 for an initial public offering.

The efforts go beyond IPOs. In just the past few weeks, L.A.’s public companies – including banks, business development specialists and even clean energy outfits – have raised more than $1 billion through new equity offerings.

“There’s no question about it that the capital market has gone from being completely locked and frozen to loosening up a lot,” said Edward Wedbush, president of Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc., an investment bank in downtown Los Angeles.

Increasing signs that the recession is easing have boosted investors’ confidence. In a little more than a month, the Dow Jones industrial average has jumped 15 percent and climbed over 9,300 for the first time in almost a year.

The stock gains have emboldened many local companies.

The same day that Dole announced its IPO filing, Ares Capital Corp., a buyout company with offices in Century City, said it plans to raise more than $100 million by issuing newly created stock. Last week, Rentech Inc., a Westwood clean energy company, said it agreed to sell $15 million in stock to an institutional investor. (See story on page 5.)

In recent weeks, a variety of companies have completed substantial new equity offerings. MannKind Corp., a biotech company based in Valencia, raised $60 million while East West Bancorp Inc., the Pasadena parent of East West Bank, sold $80 million in new stock. A pair of local real estate investment trusts each completed offerings that netted more than a half-billion dollars combined.

“REITs have access to the capital markets much more readily than they have in the past,” said Dave Rodgers, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

Strengthening finances

To date, many of the banks, REITs and other public companies that have issued new stock have been among the more financially stable in their industries.

But even some companies with more strained balance sheets, such as L.A. savings and loan FirstFed Financial Corp., are considering equity offerings to strengthen their capital positions.

“We’re at a point in time where corporations that have questionable balance sheets should actually take the opportunity to go out and strengthen those balance sheets,” Wedbush said.

Dole, which filed to sell $500 million in stock, intends to use proceeds to refinance $1.9 billion in debt remaining from a 2003 buyout by billionaire David Murdock, who is chairman of the company. Dole had been selling off assets to pay down its debt.

Los Angeles has gained two new public companies in recent weeks. Great American Group Inc., a liquidation firm in Woodland Hills, announced Aug. 3 that it had gone public after being acquired by a special-purpose acquisition company. Several days prior, PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a firm founded by former Countrywide executives, debuted with a $335 million IPO. It was the first local IPO in a year and a half.

PennyMac’s IPO was just the 15th worldwide in 2009, though six have followed since. IPO activity now is near a 10-year high, Wedbush said.

“The numbers that we’re seeing here today make it appear that we’re back into normal times,” he said.