A look at the global IPO market in the year to date shows that a strong year in the Americas has been outshone by the record clip of issuance in EMEA. While a 78 percent increase in proceeds raised is nothing to sneeze at, Europe’s 214 percent surge over 2020 makes clear that the backlog of companies coming to market have finally begun to clear Brexit-related uncertainty, writes EY in a new note.

“High equity indices and valuations, coupled with low interest rates and market volatility, contributed to the highest YOY growth in IPO activity, despite the lingering pandemic which continues to affect many parts of EMEIA in Q4 2021,” reads the 2021 EY Global IPO Trends Report.

The global uptick is all relative, of course. Europe’s whopping $109 billion in proceeds still trails Asia-Pacific’s $169 billion and the Americas’ $175 billion.

Another salient take away from an amazing year in new issuance? The deal value side of the equation is increasingly driven by the size of firms going public: more than double the number of so-called unicorns made their market debut this year compared to 2020.

“In the Americas, ample liquidity in a low interest rate environment, revived consumer confidence from the large-scale vaccine rollouts and buoyant stock markets all helped to propel U.S. IPO markets to their highest levels in 20 years,” the note says.

Like in M&A, the sectors generating the most proceeds were technology and healthcare, followed by industrials. However the logic of the dealmaking marketplace is a bit topsy turvy when it comes to leading exits: while private equity constitutes a growing share of deals, its position as a fraction of IPOs is falling. In every jurisdiction except Europe, sponsor-backed companies represented a smaller share of newly listed firms in 2021 than in the prior year.

Brandon Zero