Burdened by a weak stock market in China and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, global IPO issuance suffered in 2012. IPO proceeds fell 29.7% to $97.0 billion, the lowest level since 2008. A lack of Chinese government-backed IPOs on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges contributed to a 41.9% decline in proceeds raised in the Asia Pacific region and the absence of large offerings from 2011, which included the $10 billion IPO of commodities firm Glencore, contributed to a 64.3% drop in proceeds raised in Europe. In contrast, North America improved its issuance volume and picked up market share thanks to Facebook’s massive $16 billion offering in May 2012. Despite weak issuance levels, global IPOs rose 5.5% on average from their offer price and post-IPO returns recorded by the FTSE Renaissance Global IPO Index kept pace with broad global benchmarks due to strong year-end gains. The positive returns helped revive global IPO activity at the end of 2012 and should support stronger issuance in 2013 from the large $200 billion global IPO pipeline.
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