The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) has published its market highlights for the first half of 2020, revealing a resurgence in the amount raised through initial public offerings (IPOs).
In June 2020, companies raised $31.38 billion through IPO, the WFE said in its statement today. This is nearly three times more than what was raised in the previous month, higher by 294.1 per cent.
In fact, the amount raised in June is the highest capital amount raised through an IPO in the last six and a half years. This comes despite the fact that IPOs in the first half of 2020 fell both year on year and against the previous six month period.
According to the WFE, the record figure in June was driven by some major players, namely, Royal Pharma (Nasdaq-US) in the United States, which raised $2.2 billion in June of 2020. Warner Music Group and ZoomInfo Technologies were other large IPOs, raking in $1.9 billion, and $900 million, respectively.
WFE: APAC Region Sees the Biggest IPO
There were also some notable IPOs in the Asia Pacific region, with the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing listed JD.com taking first place in terms of the largest IPO for the year at $4.5 billion.
In Europe, the Middle East and the Asian region, the London Stock Exchange saw China Pacific Insurance Group raise $2 billion via an IPO, and Italian filter maker, GVS came to the market, with $600 million.
“Despite recording a decline in overall listings in H1 2020, the APAC region had the lion’s share of both global IPO listings (63.2%) and investment flows (52.4%). Shanghai Stock Exchange recorded the highest number of IPOs globally (74), followed by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (59) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (45),” WFE said in its statement today.
Taking a look at exchange-traded derivatives, volumes increased by 23.4 per cent when measured against the second half of 2019, with 21.72 billion contracts traded during the six month period.
