Familiar names throw their hats in 2024 IPO market revival ring
From Reddit Inc. to Syngenta Group to CVC Capital Partners, debuts meant to restore sickly global initial public offering activity to health have been pushed back, sometimes repeatedly.
Companies and investors have yet to entirely bridge the gap between their respective valuation expectations, set during boom times fueled by cheap money.
Though bankers remain broadly upbeat about 2024, even they admit that after months of headfakes failed to sustain activity, a true return to health could take months.
“It would be premature to say that there’s a normalized IPO market right around the corner,” said Eddie Molloy, Morgan Stanley’s co-head of equity capital markets Americas.
Nearly $130 billion has been raised through global IPOs this year, tracking for the worst since 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show. With mediocre post-debut trading in several of the year’s largest offerings giving new entrants pause, the return to a typical IPO market may drag on as late as — whisper it softly — 2025.
While the coming year’s IPO activity should provide a meaningful uptick from 2023, 2025 is when “we go back to pre-Covid normals,” said Achintya Mangla, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s global head of equity capital markets.
The bank is taking a view over the longer-term IPO “cycle holistically as opposed to 2024 versus 2025,” he said.
Delayed IPOs
It’s not unusual for companies to plan their first-time share sales well in advance. Still, the delays faced by some of the largest potential issuers go some length to explaining IPO markets in 2023.
CVC, one of Europe’s biggest private equity firms, had been exploring an IPO for several years before preparing in October to kick off a listing in Amsterdam, people familiar with the matter
