The value of IPOs in Europe during July and August was at its highest since before the financial crisis
By Tim Burke
The best summer for European stock market listings since before the financial crisis means the region’s equity bankers have now worked on deals worth more than all of those in 2016.
By the end of August, the combined value of initial public offerings, share sales and convertible issuances across Europe hit $165bn, according to analysis of data from Dealogic. That compares to $163bn in all of 2016, a year in which the UK’s vote to leave the European Union weighed on companies’ plans to raise new equity.
Stock market listings over the summer months have helped to drive the market. The largest European initial public offering so far in 2017 is the July float of smart utility meter manufacturer Landis+Gyr in Switzerland, valued by Dealogic at $2.4bn. The $1bn Warsaw listing of mobile phone company Play Communications, also in July, joins Landis & Gyr in the year’s top five IPOs.
Those deals and 30 others took the value of European listings during July and August to $8bn — the highest total since the summer of 2007, a period that is considered by many to mark the start of the global financial crisis.
Taken together with fundraisings from earlier in the year, including big equity raisings from Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and Credit Suisse, the listings have allowed investment bankers to generate close to $2.5bn in equity capital markets revenues this year, almost double the amount they had logged at this point in 2016, Dealogic calculates.
Bank bosses are buoyed by the rise in activity.
The year so far has been “fabulous”, said Javier Martinez-Piqueras, head of UBS’s equity capital markets and corporate solutions division in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The UBS team has been busy – Martinez-Piqueras recalls a week earlier in the year in which his bankers were working on six IPOs at the same time.
Julian Macedo, who ran emerging Emea ECM at Barclays and last year set up his own firm, The ECM Team, said: “Political considerations are proving less of a barrier than feared at the start of the year, which has encouraged new equity issuance. ECM bankers are quietly confident about their pipeline.”
“It’s been a strong market,” said Achintya Mangla, head of ECM for Emea at JPMorgan, Europe’s leading equity market bookrunner by deal value this year. “Volumes have been better than last year in terms of IPOs and there have been some large capital raisings on the financials side. The equity-linked market has been picking up, which is natural when interest rates rise.”
JPMorgan and UBS hold the top two spots on Dealogic’s European bookrunner ranking, followed by Goldman Sachs, with Citigroup and Morgan Stanley rounding out the top five.
Like their peers in debt capital markets and M&A teams, equity bankers are now hoping their clients and the markets keep active even with geopolitical and macroeconomic issues to face.
“Growth in the US and Europe means the related actions by central banks will be keenly watched,” said JPMorgan’s Mangla. “The base expectation will be for a gradual increase in rates, which we’re already seeing in the US. Obviously, if there was a reversal in that trend, and central bankers were less optimistic about growth and inflation, that would be a reason for caution among investors.”
UBS’ Martinez-Piqueras said that if volatility stays subdued, he sees plenty of transactions to come. But if it picks up, he added, expect to see deals being delayed.
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Dr. Gbenga Salau Samuel Editorial Board Chairman, Naija247news Media Group LLC Dr. Gbenga Salau Samuel is an economist and journalist trained at the University of Ibadan, renowned for blending rigorous economic analysis with clear, people-centered journalism. As Editorial Board Chairman of Naija247news Media Group LLC, he leads the newsroom’s policy and standards framework, champions data-driven reporting, and steers impactful coverage across macroeconomics, markets, public finance, governance, and development. With a career rooted in evidence-based storytelling, Dr. Samuel is committed to elevating editorial integrity, nurturing young newsroom talent, and positioning Naija247news as a trusted, agenda-shaping voice in Nigeria’s media and policy space.
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