(Bloomberg) — Delayed listings are beginning to pile up in Europe with investors fleeing high-risk and frothy assets, forcing issuers to rethink their plans to raise fresh funding in volatile public markets.
Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH on Friday became the latest to put its initial public offering on hold. The German drugmaker, which was looking to raise 750 million euros ($855 million), has decided to extend the timetable for its IPO, originally planned for the first quarter in Frankfurt, because of “current unfavorable market conditions,” the company said in a statement Friday.
The announcement came a day after startup WeTransfer pulled its Amsterdam offering, while U.K. law firm Mishcon de Reya LLP has also delayed for a second time what would have been the world’s biggest law-firm IPO, Bloomberg News reported.
The prospect of interest-rate increases combined with slowing economic growth and geopolitical tensions have set global equities on course for their worst month since the pandemic started, hurting demand for new stocks.
“In an uncertain environment, one is not very keen to replace a stock he knows well in his portfolio with a lesser known IPO,” said Michel Keusch, portfolio manager at Switzerland-based Bellevue Asset Management. “The focus is more on revisiting every single existing name in one’s fund in order to navigate through these market rotations, rather than adding additional names and bringing incremental complexity and uncertainty,” he said.
It’s not just Europe, reluctant investors are delaying listing plans across the pond too. In New York, the market turmoil has made at least nine firms call off IPOs, including cloud-based human resources platform Justworks Inc. and Four Springs Capital Trust.
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