Asia's IPO market a shadow of last year
The number of companies that have secured public listings so far this year and the capital they raised are both sharply down from last year owing to deteriorating market conditions.
In the first 10 months of the year, 284 initial public offerings in Asia, excluding Japan, raised a total of US$28.2 billion, against 439 offerings in the same period last year that raised a total of US$63.3 billion, data from Thomson Reuters shows.
A total of 50 companies withdrew their offerings, citing weakening market sentiment. In the same period last year, 11 prospective listing candidates withdrew their offerings.
'The IPO dream is over,' said an investment banker, adding that poor market sentiment was likely to persist until at least the end of next year.
