Julie M. Allen is Partner in the Corporate Department and co-head of the Capital Markets Group at Proskauer Rose LLP. This post is based on the Executive Summary of a Proskauer publication; the complete publication, including extensive analysis of multiple industry sectors, is available here.
This post is based on the third edition of Proskauer’s IPO Study. In the complete publication, you’ll find our analysis of market practices and trends for U.S.-listed initial public offerings (IPOs). Our proprietary database and analyses now cover 309 IPOs that priced between 2013 and 2015.
The 2015 IPO Market
Entering 2015, we were cautiously optimistic about the U.S. IPO market. [1] We saw 74 IPOs price in the first half of 2015—a decrease from the same period in 2014, but similar in number to the start of 2013. Of these 74 IPOs, 54 priced in the second quarter of 2015. The second half of 2015 saw a fall-off in volume primarily due to market volatility, driven by interest rate speculation, geopolitical risks with Greece and China, significant distress on oil prices and the energy and power (E&P) sector, and poor performance by IPOs priced in the first half of 2015. As a result, only 51 IPOs priced in the second half of 2015—the lowest deal count during any year’s second half since 2012.