London IPOs are booming

published 20 October 2017

The doom and gloom about Britain's economic prospects has had no impact on initial public offerings (IPOs). The main stock exchange and the junior market are "enjoying a golden period", say Deirdre Hipwell and Colin Jones in The Times. According to Dealogic, London has hosted 65 IPOs this year, compared with just 46 throughout 2016. Over £11bn has been raised, more than double 2016's £5.6bn. Over £5bn of this sum was raised by foreign companies choosing to list here.

The next company to go public is expected to be Cabot Credit Management, Britain's biggest debt collector. Also in the line up are Bakkavor, a supplier of ready meals to Marks & Spencer, EN+, Russia's top independent power supplier, and TMF, a Dutch financials services provider.

The key driver of sentiment surrounding IPOs is overall market confidence, and in this context all the stars are aligned. Stocks are at record highs, but there is no obvious trigger for a major correction in sight, as we noted last week; volatility is historically low on both sides of the Atlantic. Global IPOs are 50% up on last year, while in Europe the figure is 60%.

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Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.