The initial public offering (IPO) is back, particularly for financial sponsors, and the March listing of facility services company ISS in Copenhagen was one of Europe’s largest for some time. What had stuck in most investors’ minds, however, was the company’s history of aborted sales. UBS helped to tell them a different story.
European equity markets have been stirring since the second half of 2013, as the general perception takes hold that the crisis is over. That is particularly true of US investors, who have been funnelling more money into European equities as the macroeconomic backdrop continues to improve. One result is that private equity has rediscovered the IPO as an exit, not least in the business services sector.
