European equity issuance so far this year has been a miserable $430m, the lowest level for the first two weeks of the year since 1996 and $5bn lower than the volumes for the same period in 2002. Bankers were not expecting the year to start with a bang, but the almost complete lack of issuance - especially in comparison to the busy bond markets - has been startling. This week no deals were completed, although Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan started premarketing the Telkom IPO (see separate story).
January 17, 2003
