PitchBook News - What's holding back European IPOs?

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The Weekend Pitch

October 29, 2023

Presented by RSM

(Joey Schaffer/PitchBook News)

Europe's struggling IPO market teased a comeback this week with the news that Swedish battery maker Northvolt is aiming to go public in Stockholm at a valuation of up to $20 billion. But a slew of recently canceled listings, along with the dismal performance by London's biggest listing this year, casts doubt on any hope for a rebound in IPOs.

Northvolt's planned deal makes it the most highly valued company to go public in Europe this year. But just a day after that IPO was announced, the market was jolted by news that shares of newly public CAB Payments plunged 72% after it slashed its revenue forecast. While the cross-border fintech company is dealing with its own issues, like African exchange-rate fluctuations eating into its profit margin, the stock selloff doesn't bode well for the IPO market.

Even before this turbulence, many private companies were getting cold feet about going public.

Earlier this month, Planisware, a French B2B SaaS company, decided to pull its IPO because of market jitters. German toll company DKV Mobility, which is backed by CVC Capital Partners, and military gearbox supplier Renk Group, which has Triton among its investors, also shelved plans to list their shares.

Europe has seen some glimmers of hope for IPOs to stage a comeback, but it may not come soon enough for investors suffering a crisis of liquidity.

This is the Weekend Pitch, and I'm Andrew Woodman. You can reach me at andrew.woodman@pitchbook.com or @adwoodman on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trivia

(Courtesy of Convoy)

Freight tech and logistics startups saw a huge boom in interest during the pandemic, when ecommerce exploded and pressures were placed on the supply chain. Several startups stepped up to help, but one of the darlings of that time has now shuttered. Which freight tech startup shut down?

A) Convoy
B) Transfix
C) Flexport
D) Motive

Find your answer at the bottom of The Weekend Pitch!

When will the M&A deals start flowing?

(FCerez/Getty Images)

Global M&A deal value nearly reached a 10-year low in Q3, but several market conditions point to an upcoming recovery. The question is when dealmakers will see deal flow start to accelerate.

Our latest Q3 2023 Global M&A Report, sponsored by Liberty GTS, explores the possible timing for the resurgence of dealmaking and breaks down trends shaping the M&A market in Q3.

Traditional finance's big push into crypto

(SOPA Images/Getty Images)

Cryptocurrency and blockchain are seeing more adoption and being embraced by traditional financial institutions, according to PitchBook's latest Emerging Tech Research.

Hoping to increase efficiency and offer more services, the future could see a more integrated network between traditional finance and digital assets.

Reading the IPO tea leaves

(DebbiSmirnoff/Getty Images)

An end-of-summer burst of successful IPOs was undercut by poor debuts from Instacart and Birkenstock, further complicating the IPO outlook.

Our first IPO and S1 Navigator unpacks the action in Q3 and draws out lessons learned from the handful of large listings. In short: a path to profitability still matters, robust valuations remain hard to justify and new IPOs are being suppressed by investors' expectations and slowing revenue growth.

Quote/Unquote

(Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

"The VW bug still works on the road. It's an older technology, but you still see a bunch of bugs driving around California."

—James Currier, general partner at NFX, speaking to PitchBook News on the difference between open-source large language models and closed off ones like ChatGPT.

Stay tuned

Keep an eye out for these insights and research reports coming out this week:

Q3 2023 Information Security Report
Q3 2023 Carbon & Emissions Tech Report
2023 Healthcare Services Overview
Q3 2023 Enterprise Fintech Report

Trivia

Answer: A)

Convoy, which hit a peak valuation of $3.8 billion in 2022, closed its doors last week. Our news analysis looks at Convoy and the state of the freight tech sector.

This edition of The Weekend Pitch was written by Andrew Woodman, Madeline Shi, James Thorne and Jacob Robbins. It was edited by Alexander Davis and Ron Prichard.

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PitchBook News - What's holding back European IPOs?

Trivia

When will the M&A deals start flowing?

Traditional finance's big push into crypto

Reading the IPO tea leaves

Quote/Unquote

Stay tuned

Trivia

Older messages

What now for IPOs?

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Charting the course for IPOs

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