The value of IPOs on the WSE in 2012 amounted to EUR731 million Courtesy of The Warsaw Stock Exchange

The Warsaw Stock Exchange took the top spot in Europe in the number of IPOs it held in 2012, hosting 105 of them, according to PwC’s IPO Watch Europe report.

Second on the list was the London Stock Exchange, with 73 IPOs. However, in terms of value of the public offerings, Warsaw was 5th on the continent.

Even with 40 percent of Europe’s IPOs, the value Warsaw Stock Exchange debuts came to only E731 million. Compared to London’s EUR5.1 billion, that’s small potatoes. All these figures are also smaller than those from 2011. That year, the WSE held 203 IPOs worth EUR2.2 billion in total. At the same time, London was home to 101 IPOs valued at EUR14.1 billion.

Even with these lower figures, the fourth quarter of 2012 was much better than the last three months of 2011 for the whole Europe. In Q4 of 2012, the value of all IPOs in Europe totaled EUR7.5 billion, compared to only EUR0.9 billion the year before. That number, the highest since Q3 of 2011 (EUR9.4 billion), shows promise for the upcoming year, analysts said.

“Even with unfavorable political and economic conditions in Europe, the prospects for IPOs look better, especially considering the increase in activity in the last quarter of 2012. The European markets look more optimistic,” said Tomasz Konieczny, a partner in the assurance and advisory services department of PwC. PwC also predicts that many companies will restart their plans to go public, if economic activity rises.
It’s hard to say if 2013 will be as successful for the WSE as 2012 was. So far it’s hard to find a company like Alior Bank, whose IPO in December was worth E511 million, which was the 5th-biggest IPO in the whole of Europe in Q4.The number of new companies on NewConnect (Warsaw’s secondary market) is also way down. In 2011 there were 172 IPOs, and last year only 89 (16 in Q4), and the trend will probably continue.

Jacek Ciesnowski