The post-COVID bull market has flowed through to healthy activity in Australia’s IPO market, HLB Mann Judd says.

The accounting and advisory firm has released its latest half-year IPO report, and the numbers stand in stark contrast to the first half of last year.

No less than 61 new companies joined the ASX boards the June 30, up from 12 in 2020 after the pandemic brought new listings to a halt in the first half of 2020.

“Activity was driven by favourable macroeconomic and capital market conditions together with strong investor sentiment,” said Marcus Ohm, HLB Mann Judd partner and the report’s author.

Of the 61 new listings, 48 were classified as small caps and of those, activity was driven by the mining and materials sector which contributed 26 new entrants.

A total of $462m flowed into small cap IPOs in the first half of the year, of which $220m went to resources IPOs.

And looking ahead, investors will have plenty of opportunities to weigh up new mining opportunities with a spate of explorers still lining up for public listings.
 

Looking ahead

With 61 IPOs booked in the first half of the year, Ohm flagged another 42 for the second half.

FY22 got off to a flying start when six companies joined the ASX boards on July 2.

That was followed by two more on July 5, three on July 9 and two on July 12.

With another three IPOs yesterday, led by property tech company Openn Negotiation which jumped on debut, the ASX is tracking at an average of around one new IPO per day heading into the end of July.

With the current rush, Ohm’s projected second-half total of 42 is already about halfway to being completed, less than one month into the new financial year.

Once again, resources will drive most of the activity with 27 of the IPO 42 companies operating in the mining and materials sector.

“By commodity type, 15 of these upcoming listings hold gold projects with five holding copper projects,” Ohm said.

In addition, there “continues to be a wide range of companies planning to list, with nine industry sectors represented in upcoming listings”, he said.