Q3 2014 Strongest IPO Market In Years (With Or Without Alibaba)

The three months through September were still the busiest for IPOs in four years and would have been even if Alibaba had never set foot in the U.S. and gone public.

“Alibaba breathed even more life into the IPO market,” said Liz Myers, global head of equity capital markets at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, reports Bloomberg. “It has definitely helped to enhance the sentiment for new deals in what has been a busy IPO calendar year.”

Including Alibaba’s $25 billion IPOs, public offerings  globally raised $66.8 billion during the quarter, the most during this period ever. Most of that, $40.1 billion of that, was raised in the the U.S., with Europe kicking in $8.6 billion and Asia adding  $14.3 to the pot, according to Bloomberg’s data.

The dominant third quarter brought the IPO tally for the first nine months of the year to $182.7 billion.

“It’s not a capital-constrained market, it’s an opportunity-constrained one,” said Paul Donahue, co-head of equity capital markets at Morgan Stanley in New York. “As a class, IPOs are still working. As long as underwriters and business owners remain responsible with valuation and positioning, the broader backdrop still remains conducive to IPOs.”

The IPO market may be facing some difficulties in Q4. Political instability in Hong Kong has lead to stock price declines globally, as the recent rash of IPO’s now has market watchers watching those companies for performance out of the gate as publicly traded entities.