Initial public offerings have gotten off to a rough start of the year.
Globally, $26.7 billion worth of IPOs have priced, marking a 60% drop from the same period a year earlier. Now, pulled deals are piling up under pressure from roiling markets.
The prospect of interest rate hikes combined with slowing economic growth and geopolitical tensions have set global equities on course for their worst month since the pandemic started. Frothier technology and growth shares, including recent IPOs, have been particularly vulnerable to the selloff as investors flock to cheaper stocks.
“It’s a really tough environment for new listings right now,” said Andreas Bernstorff, head of European equity capital markets at BNP Paribas SA. “Many investors are grappling with their portfolios turning negative and the rotation into value is depressing appetite for the growth stocks that dominated the IPO market last year.”
The Cboe Volatility Index, a gauge of expected market swings also known as the VIX, has surged 60% this month, a red flag for new share sales.
In New York, the market turmoil has made at least nine firms call off IPOs, including cloud-based human resources platform Justworks Inc. and Four Springs Capital Trust. And the blank-check frenzy that reached a fever pitch in early 2021 has reversed course, with $4 billion worth of special-purpose acquisition company listings scrapped this month.
In Europe, startup WeTransfer pulled its Amsterdam offering on Thursday after it failed to drum up enough investor demand, and a day later German drugmaker Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH put its planned listing on hold. U.K. law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP has delayed what would have been the world’s biggest law firm IPO for a second time, Bloomberg News reported.
Falling investor demand and rocky markets have caused the value of scrapped IPOs to almost double worldwide from a year ago, hitting $6.2 billion so far. Another recent casualty was South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Co., which pulled its $1 billion listing on Friday after failing to draw demand at the valuation it wanted.
“While the selloff removes some of the froth from the market, and will likely create many opportunities in growth stocks for the long term, it would be a brave decision for a corporate to push for an IPO in the current climate,” said Virginie Maisonneuve, global chief investment officer for equities at Allianz Global Investors.
In Hong Kong, Asia’s busiest listing venue, proceeds are down by more than 40% this year as China’s sweeping regulatory crackdown forces companies to put IPO plans on ice.
Fund managers “have started seeing outflows, which means they’re more focused on repositioning their portfolio rather than buying new issues,” said Fabian De Smet, Berenberg’s global head of equity syndicate. “IPOs have quickly moved from the top to the bottom of their priority list.”