Iraq / Arab Summit News Agency
A banking crisis at major US banks, coupled with fears of a recession, has dampened expectations for this year’s initial public offerings, prompting companies to slow down their IPO plans, and potentially lowering fees for investment banks.
Despite the recovery in the ability to raise financing and the increase in trading in large numbers of shares, the volumes of public offerings from the beginning of the year to date came at the lowest level since 2019.
According to the “Dealogic” platform, offerings in stock markets around the world during 2023 have seen nearly $ 26 billion raised so far.
The poor performance of some IPOs that have already taken place including German web-hosting provider Eunos, along with the sell-off sparked by the collapse of Silicon Valley’s stock market, has prompted many companies to shelve plans to go public.
Optimism and a bright spot
Nevertheless, capital market advisors are optimistic of a recovery in listing activity during the latter part of the year. According to underwriters, companies operating in the energy transition are a bright spot, as they are expected to remain attractive to investors.
According to the report, the Middle East region represented another bright spot after it witnessed the inclusion of many well-known names, including Abraaj for Omani Energy Services and the UAE’s ADNOC Gas.
Gulf immunity
For his part, Chris Laing, supervisor of capital markets activities in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa and the Middle East at HSBC, said, “The Gulf region has so far enjoyed immunity from the tensions that afflicted European markets, and therefore we expect We should continue to see IPOs from countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
