Two-faced stock market, in 2018. At least as regards IPOs: the new international scenarios, trade duties, the Italian political turbulence and other instability factors are causing a certain volatility on the markets, especially in perspective, and this has already had its effects on prices. After a 2017 with a decidedly positive trend, especially in Piazza Affari where Pirelli returned to the Ftse Mib and where there were 24 IPOs at the AIM alone, 2018 has so far been more cautious: once again taking AIM as a parameter, the SME segment that has experienced a boom also thanks to the PIR effect, as of May 15 there were only eight entries on the Stock Exchange, in contrast with the Stoxx Europe Ipo , which has recorded a negative trend since the beginning of the year, but still slowing down on the expected roadmap (we are talking about reach 300 listed SMEs at the end of 2020).
If it is true that this has nevertheless allowed AIM Italia to reach and exceed the historic threshold of 100 listed companies (Somec, listed on 14 May, became number 101), it is also true that it is a symptom of a tendency towards caution. In fact, 17 IPOs on European financial markets have been withdrawn or postponed since January, of which even 11 only between April and May. The numbers therefore testify to a slowdown in freshmen after the great expectations of the past months. Among the excellent withdrawals are those of the Spanish Hispania in Madrid (value of 500 million), of Springer Nature in Frankfurt (consumer sector with a value around one billion), of Gategroup in Zurich (value always above one billion and active in retail) up to the Italian Itema, an international leader in the sector of hi-tech looms from Bergamo: an operation worth 130 million euros.
If you look at numbers more in depth, the slowdown on the European primary capital market is 27% year to date. But what is the reason for this sudden braking? It must be said that the American stock market recorded a correction and consequently the same trend was seen by the European lists. It must be added that in the last two months there has been crowding on the market, with too many operations, often repetitive, on the table of institutional investors. Furthermore, there was an excess of paper on some sectors such as for example real estate: it is no coincidence that in addition to the Iberian Hispania, the stock market listings of the English Fundamentum and the Irish Core Industrial also jumped. In short volatility grows, investors become more selective and companies therefore begin to backtrack on their proposals for listing on the stock exchange.
Then there is also a crucial issue of evaluation. Compared to 4 months ago, evaluations of potential freshmen have dropped by about 20%. Many therefore gave up convinced of the fact that the value of the owned company is much higher than what is estimated by the market today. This is the case, for example, of Itema, but also of Octo Telematics, an Italian company famous for the "black box" for cars and motorcycles: in this case, demonstrating how much international dynamics also weigh, the misadventures have influenced of the Russian shareholder Viktor Vekselberg, who ended up on the American "black" list of sanctioned oligarchs for relations with the government of Vladimir Putin. However, the forecasts say that the summer should bring new optimism: will this also happen in Italy, where there is still no government?
