The first trans-atlantic stock exchange, NYSE Euronext, listed $78 billion in intial public offerings this year in the U.S. and Europe, the most of any exchange group. Sarbanes-Oxley is to blame for driving foreign company listings to London and other exchanges. This story briefly discusses this latest event in IPO news.
Globe and Mail reported over the weekend that NYSE Euronext won the war for initial public offerings in 2007. Citing Bloomberg data, the story says the transatlantic exchange listed $78 billion in IPOs in the U.S. and Europe, as opposed to the $52.2 billion in IPOs listed on the markets of the London Stock Exchange.
Competition between the U.S. and London exchanges has been stiff since Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted, and many blame the corporate reporting law's rigorous requirements for driving foreign company listings to London and other foreign exchanges. But the merger with Euronext was just what the NYSE needed, it seems - along with relaxed delisting requirements for foreign companies listed in the U.S.
Christiaan Brakman, a NYSE spokesperson quoted in Globe and Mail, says:
NYSE Euronext has had a strong year for new listings and IPOs in 2007. With 33 IPOs by non-U.S. companies raising almost $14 billion on the NYSE, we're back to levels not seen since Sarbanes-Oxley was introduced in 2002.
Interestingly, of the 42 foreign listings on the NYSE, 20 came from Chinese companies.
