The initial public offering market right now is booming and busting at the same time. At one level, investment bankers have reason to rejoice. Proceeds so far this year have reached $147.5bn compared with $44bn for the same period last year, powered by Space X’s $86bn IPO and SK Hynix’s $26.5bn offering on Nasdaq. Anthropic waits in the wings.
Yet flotations have stalled of late, with just three US debuts since Labor Day in September. Bamboo Insurance postponed its IPO. Holtec Nuclear pushed back its listing. SB Energy has slowed its IPO timeline, while Oura pulled its Nasdaq flotation last week.
The IPO market and stock market are not the same thing. This year’s new issues have disappointed, with more than 40 per cent trading below offer price. Excluding Space X and SK Hynix, the weighted average return on IPOs in 2026 is minus 4 per cent, according to Bloomberg, compared with a 12 per cent gain in the S&P 500 index.
Some of the slowdown reflects the normal ebb and flow in the IPO cycle. Why does this always happen? Bankers resemble politicians who campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Conversely, every equity capital markets banker has lost mandates to rivals promising a higher valuation. Syndicate structure can aggravate the problem, with larger US flotations increasingly having multiple active bookrunners.
Source: Financial Times Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing