IPO Activity Is Back, But Why?

In the early Summer of 2011, the equity capital markets team in Jersey had a significant pipeline of initial public offerings awaiting admission to the various markets of the London Stock Exchange. We were advising groups from Russia, India, Israel, and a large number of Chinese domestic businesses across a whole range of sectors from natural resources to hotels and leisure to retail. By the end of that Summer all but two of those proposed listings were on hold - unrealistic valuations and lack of investor appetite played a part but the real killers were uncertainty and volatility. Market commentators estimated that at least £10 billion (and perhaps as much as £30 billion) of IPO activity had been postponed in the European market alone.