May was the strongest month for money raising through IPOs on the London Stock Exchange since July last year. 23 new companies, from fourteen different sectors, conducted IPOs on the Exchange’s markets during the month, raising £5.7 billion between them. This total included: three international IPOs on the Main Market, which raised £4.3 billion between them; seven UK IPOs on the Main Market, raising £720.5 million between them; and 13 AIM IPOs raising £685.9 million.


Notable IPOs during May included: Pharmstandard, the Russian pharmaceutical company which issued GDRs on the international Main Market; Russian bank VTB Bank; the Local Shopping REIT, which was the first new UK specialist start-up Real Estate Investment Trust to be admitted to trading since the introduction of the UK REIT tax regime this year; and the paper company Powerflute, which became the first Finnish company to join AIM.

Since 1 January 2007 there have been 101 IPOs on the Exchange’s markets, raising £12.8 billion, an increase of 31 per cent on the £9.8 billion raised through IPOs over the same period last year.

It was also a strong month on the secondary markets. The total number of SETS trades during May was 10.5 million, up 33 per cent on May last year, itself an extremely strong month. The total value traded on SETS during the month was up 12 per cent on last year to £177.5 billion. The average daily number of trades was 499,358 and the average daily value traded on SETS was £8.5 billion.

The growth in SETS trading continues to reflect in part very strong growth on the SETSmm segment. There were 2.6 million SETSmm trades during the month, up 53 per cent on May last year and now accounting for a quarter of all SETS trades. The total value traded on SETSmm grew 28 per cent to £18.2 billion. Trading on the IOB was also strong, with a record 96,627 trades during the month, an increase of 24 per cent on May last year, while the value traded during the month was £7.5 billion.

There were 11.6 million UK equity trades during the month, up 29 per cent on May last year. The total value of UK shares traded increased 18 per cent on last year to £373.9 billion, and the average daily value traded in UK equities was a record at £17.8 billion.

Three new ETFs were admitted to trading on the Exchange during the month. In total, there were 39,429 ETF trades, an increase of 23 per cent on the total for May last year. The total value traded in ETFs increased 43 per cent on May last year to £2.8 billion.

RNS, the Exchange’s service for the dissemination of company news, issued 16,905 announcements during May, up 8 per cent on May last year. Of these, 39 per cent, or 6,666 were news and results announcements, representing an 86 per cent share of all such announcements made in the UK market.