FINANCE
The pace may have seen a summer slowdown , but the IPO market has come an awful long way since the financial crash .
The first five months of the year saw the highest level of listings since 2007 , marking an important turnaround for activity when compared to the doldrums of the recession . In 2009 , just £ 600m was raised on the London Stock Exchange . Nearly ten times this level was raised by April alone in 2014 .
Following the listing of Royal Mail and Merlin Entertainments last year , high profile names such as AO World , McColls and Just Eat followed suit in early 2014 , with Saga listing in May and TSB in June .
While activity has calmed following the initial surge at the start of the year , we anticipate it will strengthen again in the remainder of 2014 .
Picking up Looking at the pipeline of companies considering an IPO , there is still a lot of potential new supply over the next 12 months – and especially so if the FTSE sees a traditional end of year rally .
We initially forecast last year that the amount raised by IPOs
Merlin ’ s value was listed as £ 3bn when it launched its IPO
would be 50 percent higher in 2014 than it was in 2013 , but the underlying strength of the market suggests it could be significantly higher than this by year end .
The resurgence of the IPO market in 2014 is welcome news . IPOs perform a vital function , boosting the variety of investment opportunities for both retail and
16 August 2014