Buybacks are booming, equity issuance is falling and public markets are shrinking – at least in terms of the number of stocks available, which has fallen by 50% in the US since its peak in 1996. The value of what is available is rising (in the form of market capitalisation), driven both by the buybacks and the inflow of new funds.
But with new companies leaving it longer to go public because they can finding plenty of pre-IPO funding, existing listed companies are older, larger and slower-growing than 20 years ago. A report by fund investor Pantheon notes that the average US public company is 50% older and four times larger than two decades ago.
