While the IPO market has forged ahead strongly in the last year, it has also been a buoyant period for secondary offerings - again driven by the telecoms, media and technology sectors.
Goldman Sachs has enjoyed a better year than most in the secondary markets, leading big telecom deals in China, Japan and Germany.
Mike Evans, managing director and global co-head of equity capital markets at Goldman Sachs, says the current level of activity is set to continue, despite recent market volatility. "While it has been a volatile period, the market has been very receptive to both new capital raising and well-structured good stories for secondary offerings," he says. "Notwithstanding that the market will still be volatile, I would expect them to continue to be busy."
Evans says crucially there is still investor demand in the telecoms, media and technology sectors, and it is not being dimmed, despite the amount of deals in recent months. "When you think about governments selling shares in Deutsche Telekom, NTT in Japan, other governments selling telecoms in Sweden, Finland or Norway, there is a lot of paper out there and yet these deals, providing they're properly structured, and most importantly properly marketed, are still meeting with very strong investor receptivity."