Data firm says the 'extraordinary quietness' of IPO activity can be summarized in four words
Canadian IPO activity so far in 2023 has been subdued and the year could end up being the worst for total raised.
The first half of the year has seen just 34 IPOs completed on the Canadian exchanges, raising $172 million or $163 million from 13 IPOs says CPE Analytics. This total excludes Capital Pool Company (CPC) and special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) IPOs.
If this level of activity continues to the end of the year, CPE says that on an annualized basis 2023 would end up with just $344 million raised, the worst on record and just half of the previous worst year in 2016 (with $799m raised).
The firm says that four words summarize the weakness of Canadian IPOs so far this year: CSE, Mining, BC, and CPC.
The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) saw 12 Canadian IPOs completed, or 92% of Canadian non-CPC/SPAC IPOs or 35% of all Canadian exchange IPOs.
There were 12 Canadian Mining IPOs completed, 11 of them on the CSE, with gross proceeds of $157 million, accounting for 96% of total amount raised by non-CPC/SPAC IPOs or 91% of all IPOs on Canadian exchanges.
Lithium Royalty Corp.'s $150 million IPO on TSX accounted for 95% of the total mining IPO amount, 92% of all non-CPC/SPAC IPO amount or 87% of all IPO amount.
British Columbia companies completed 24 IPOs for $11 million, accounting for 71% of the total number of all IPOs.
Excluding CPC/SPAC, 11 IPOs completed by BC companies for $7, accounting for 85% of the total number of non-CPC/SPAC IPOs. 2 Ontario IPOs accounted for the remaining 15% of non-CPC/SPAC IPOs.
And there were 21 CPC IPOs completed on TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) for $9 million, accounting for 62% of all IPOs. IPOs on TSX-V in the first half were exclusively CPC.
