A total of £3.5 billion was raised by companies undertaking an IPO on the London Stock Exchange’s markets in October, up 40 per cent on the same month last year. This takes the total money raised through IPOs on the Exchange’s market to £22.3 billion so far this year, more than any other exchange in the world.

During the month the Exchange attracted: 11 IPOs to the Main Market, raising a total of £2.6 billion; one IPO to the Professional Securities Market (PSM), raising £79.1 million; and 22 IPOs to AIM, raising £885.7 million. Of these 34 IPOs, eight were by international companies, raising £1.0 billion between them. The figures include MCB Bank, the first Pakistan-based company to list on any of the Exchange’s markets, which raised £79.1 million on the PSM.

During October there were 7.3 million trades on SETS, the Exchange’s electronic order book, an increase of 52 per cent on October 2005. The value traded on SETS increased 29 per cent to £136.0 billion over the same period. The average daily number of trades on SETS during October increased 45 per cent to 331,378, and the average daily value traded increased 23 per cent on last year to £6.2 billion.

Included in these figures, SETSmm had another excellent month, with the number of trades up 108 per cent on October 2005 to 1.6 million; the total value traded increased 85 per cent to £12.8 billion.

Also included within the SETS figures, the total number of trades on the International Order Book increased 34 per cent to 53,321, with the total value traded up 42 per cent to £5.0 billion.

ETF trading was up 117 per cent to 26,078 trades during the month, with a 70 per cent increase in the value traded in ETFs to £1.9 billion. Three new ETFs were admitted to trading during the month.

Trading in all UK equities increased 44 per cent to 8.2 million trades during the month, and the total value traded was up 24 per cent to £285.7 billion.

RNS, the Exchange’s service for the dissemination of company news, transmitted 15,187 announcements during October 2006. This total included 5,596 news and results announcements, an increase of 21 per cent on the number of news and results announcements during the same month last year.

There were 22 trading days during October 2006, one more than in October 2005.