07/03/2011
IPOs on the rise in 2011
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Initial public offerings have started strong in 2011. According to a report on outlooks for IPOs published by Ernst & Young (“Global IPO trends report 2011,”) offerings have totalled USD25.3bn in the first two months of the year, with 193 operations. The cause of this increase is a considerable backlog of many initial offerings delayed since the beginning of the financial crisis, as well as privatisations, sales of multinational groups, and the needs of companies in the natural resources, infrastructure and IT sectors. In China, IPOs in Shanghai and Shenzhen have totalled USD10.5bn (of which USD6.5bn were in Shenzhen), in nearly 60 operations. In Hong Kong, IPOs may top USD50bn this year, Ernst & Young estimates. “In an illustration of the rising confidence of investors in valuations and a growing appetite for risk, IPOs are expected to increase in a wide variety of sectors and geographical regions, not only in BRIC countries, but also in other emerging markets, such as South-East Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America,” says Franck Sebag, a partner specialised in strategic gorwth markets at Ernst & Young. In the United States, there were 26 operations in the first two months of the year, which raised USD9bn. As of the end of February 2011, plans for about 150 IPOs are set to raise about USD42bn. In Europe, 26 IPOs in the first two months of the year have raised USD1.8bn. Despite a slow start to the year, Ernst & Young finds that there are many IPOs planned for the year in Europe, particularly in eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic and Russia).
