Dr. Kon­rad Bösl/Gebhard Mei­er: The new issue year 2015 only con­vin­ces at first glan­ce – a lot of light and a lot of shadow

Publi­ca­ti­on in Cor­po­ra­te Finan­ce 01–02/2016

In 2015, the­re were 14 new issues in Ger­ma­ny with a public offe­ring. The pla­ce­ment volu­me amoun­ted to just over €6.1 bil­li­on. In terms of this, 2015 was the stron­gest new issue year sin­ce 2007. At the same time, the IPO of Cove­s­tro AG with a pla­ce­ment volu­me of € 1.5 bil­li­on was also the lar­gest sin­ce 2007. Unli­ke in recent years, only three com­pa­nies came from a finan­cial inves­tor’s port­fo­lio and the­re was no so-cal­led Chi­na IPO. Howe­ver, a dif­fe­ren­tia­ted ana­ly­sis shows that the new issue year 2015 was by no means so suc­cessful. At the end of the year, new issues in the pri­ce deve­lo­p­ment in rela­ti­on to the total issue pri­ce recor­ded only a balan­ced deve­lo­p­ment in the medi­an. They also per­for­med wea­k­er than in the pre­vious year com­pared to the over­all mar­ket. For a num­ber of issuers, the initi­al tra­ding pro­cess was (signi­fi­cant­ly) worse than plan­ned.
11 com­pa­nies had to can­cel their IPO or could only imple­ment it with a revi­sed issu­an­ce con­cept. As a result, issuers and lega­cy owners lost a maxi­mum of €2.4 bil­li­on in issue reve­nue.

I. Intro­duc­tion
Exclu­ding SO-cal­led IPO-lights1, 14 IPOs with a public offer took place in 2015 (pre­vious year ten).2 Shares worth approx. €6.1 bil­li­on among insti­tu­tio­nal and pri­va­te inves­tors (pre­vious year: €3.2 bil­li­on). The pla­ce­ment volu­me was the­r­e­fo­re appro­xi­m­ate­ly 91 abo­ve the 2014 figu­re. This was the hig­hest pla­ce­ment volu­me sin­ce 2007 and also the lar­gest new issue with the IPO of Cove­s­tro AG with a pla­ce­ment volu­me of € 1.5 bil­li­on. In addi­ti­on, two fur­ther new issues excee­ded the bil­li­on-dol­lar pla­ce­ment volu­me thres­hold: Deut­sche Pfand­brief­bank AG with a pla­ce­ment volu­me of €1.16 bil­li­on and Scout 24 AG with a pla­ce­ment volu­me of just over €1 bil­li­on. The­se key data for the new issue year 2015 could lead to the con­clu­si­on of a suc­cessful year for IPOs in Ger­ma­ny. Howe­ver, the con­clu­si­on is not cor­rect becau­se the­re have not been as many can­cel­la­ti­ons sin­ce the end of the New Mar­ket and fai­led new issues in the first attempt as in 2015. In total, five com­pa­nies were unable to imple­ment their stock mar­ket plans. A fur­ther six com­pa­nies
IPO only by exten­ding the sub­scrip­ti­on peri­od or by re-test­ing with a revi­sed issu­an­ce con­cept. In addi­ti­on, the pri­ce deve­lo­p­ment of new issues as of Decem­ber 31, 2015 was balan­ced in medi­an and only slight­ly bet­ter than the over­all mar­ket.

II. Over­view and ana­ly­sis of sel­ec­ted new issues 2015

Con­ti­nue rea­ding.…