Just six companies were listed onto UK exchanges in the second quarter of 2022
(Picture: Evening Standard)Proceeds from UK IPOs dropped 94% in the first half of 2022 as firms shunned public listings amid geopolitical tension and inflationary pressure.
Just six companies were listed onto UK exchanges in the second quarter of 2022, with only a single company joining the AIM market in a £6 million raise.
The slim pickings for the UK IPO market are in stark contrast to a bumper year in 2021, in which the London Stock Exchange became the largest global centre for IPOs outside the US and China, with companies raising a combined £3.8 billion in the second quarter alone.
The UK IPO market performed worse than the global market as a whole, which saw proceeds decline 58% over the same period. China accounted for more than half of global IPO proceeds in the first half of 2022, representing a 46% increase over 2021. Tech and life science IPOs, which were among the most common in 2021, fell 61% globally.
EY UKI IPO Leader Scott McCubbin said: “There is a perfect storm of geopolitical pressure creating a challenging macroeconomic landscape, which are compounded by inflationary pressures focused on high energy and commodity prices leading to associated interest rates rises.
“We expect a weak IPO market for the remainder of 2022 due to these challenging conditions.”
