Some 80 initial public offerings in pipeline
ISTANBUL
Some 80 companies are planning to launch public offerings (IPO), says İbrahim Ömer Gönül, the head of the Capital Markets Board (SPK).
Among them are companies whose IPO size may reach between 6 billion to 7 billion Turkish Liras ($254 million), he added.
Gönül recalled that the Turkish capital markets saw a record number of transactions in 2021. A total of 52 IPOs were launched that year, and those companies raised 21.6 billion liras from public offerings, Gönül said.
Last year, the authorities approved 44 IPO prospectuses, and the size of the funds collected through those public offerings amounted to 23.1 billion liras, according to Gönül.
“As of September this year, 34 IPO prospectuses have been approved, and shares of 33 companies have started to trade on the stock exchange,” he said.
More than 47 billion liras have been raised in this year’s public offerings so far, according to Gönül.
He noted that public offerings are luring more investors into the stock exchange.
“The number of investors in the stock exchange was 2.4 million in 2021 but soared to 7.8 million as of the end of September.”
The strong performance of Borsa Istanbul’s main BIST-100 index this year is not only related to the IPOs, according to Gönül.
“In an inflationary environment, people usually turn to stock exchanges. Yet, there is no doubt new public offerings attract new investors.”
IPO applications are very carefully assessed, Gönül stressed. “We do not unveil which applications we reject but announce only the ones we give it a go ahead. Those companies who meet the required criteria are allowed to offer their shares to the public.”
The Real Estate Certificates did not receive much attention in the past, Gönül also said. “Now we will bring them stronger. Those certificates will provide significant financing for urban transformation and disaster management.”
They are also working on a Real Estate Project Fund, he said. “Unlike the Real Estate Investment Fund, this new instrument will allow those funds to develop real estate projects.”
Kormaz Ergun, the CEO of Borsa Istanbul, recently said that 93 billion liras were raised from 130 public offerings in the past three years.
The number of companies whose shares trade on the stock exchange increased from 394 three years to 522, while the average daily trading volume rose from 26 billion liras to 131 billion liras in 2023, according to Ergun.
He also said that some 950 billion liras have been raised through around 4,500 debt instruments over the past years.
