Euronext Dublin chief insists IPO pipeline ‘strong’ after flurry of market exits
Euronext Dublin’s chief executive says the stock exchange’s initial public offering (IPO) pipeline is “probably the strongest that we’ve seen” in years, following a slew of market exits in the past decade amid corporate buyouts and moves to Wall Street. Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Daryl Byrne said the exchange, which is part of the Euronext family of eight national bourses across Europe , is aiming for five to six listings per annum in the coming years. He said the addition of a number of new listing sponsors to the market in the past 18 months – including Irish corporate finance fintech Assiduous and UK -based Bowsprit – should support flotations of small companies in particular. “We need to get the companies on to the market. That’s why we launched [Euronext] Access, it’s a stepping stone,” Byrne said of the springboard market that has attracted the listings of two small businesses in the past nine months. Euronext Dublin’s head of listings, Niall Jones, says the pipeline spans small companies looking at the access market to those eyeing its growth and main regulated markets. He did not give further details. Stéphane Boujnah, Euronext group chief executive, acknowledged at the briefing that Dublin is alone among the eight markets to see a number of large companies – or so-called large caps – depart in recent times for Wall Street. “The reality of the Irish environment is that large Irish caps are extremely active in the US,” he said. “So, there is a sort of reality of connectivity with Boston rather than Brussels . . . which has created a specific situation. There is no other country in Europe where we’ve lost so much of large caps to the US.” Building materials giant CRH, gambling group Flutter Entertainment and cardboard box-maker Smurfit Kappa (since renamed Smurfit Westrock) have each quit the Irish exchange in the past three years. Of the 23 remaining companies on the growth and main markets, PTSB and Irish Continental Group are the subject of takeover deals, while Donegal Investment Group and Malin Corporation are in effective wind-down. Euronext had been lobbying in recent years for the creation of tax-efficient savings and investment accounts, similar to what the Government plans to unveil in the budget next month. Boujnah said there should be natural interest among “younger generations” in particular, who have driven a rise in activity among retail investors in financial markets globally in recent years. In an interview earlier this week, Boujnah spoke about being open to Euronext merging with its biggest rival, Deutsche Börse, or a tie-up between the groups’ equity exchange businesses. He said on Friday that a number of factors would make a “big bang” merger of the two groups “complicated to execute”. However, he believes Europe needs to build corporations of global scale in certain industries. Boujnah said: “I do believe that in the world where Trump wants us weak, where Putin wants us dead, where Xi Jinping wants us poor – or just rich enough to buy their stuff, but not too much to make things – there is an urgent need for building in Europe companies that are scalable and to make it as quickly as possible.” He highlighted Airbus, formed in 1970 as a collaboration between France, West Germany and the UK, and later joined by Spain, as “a fantastic European success”. It has consistently delivered more planes than Boeing, the previous global leader, since 2019.