IPO a-go-go

I was pleased to see investment trust launches dominated the list of most popular flotations on Interactive Investors this year. Only one bond (RCB Charities Aid Foundation) and one equity issue (ProCook Group) made it on to the broker’s top 11, which was otherwise littered with nine of the 16 initial public offers (IPOS) we look at in our second feature.

The successful listings of HydrogenOne Capital Growth, Life Science Reit, Seraphim Space and Atrato Onsite Energy, among others, have contributed to a bumper year for IPOs by investment companies, raising £3.8bn and pushing total inflows to the sector to a record £14.8bn.

The arrival of these innovative closed-end funds is a testament to the ingenuity and cutting-edge drive of the investment company sector.

Interactive rightly complains of the huge number of company share issues that bypass private investors and court City institutions instead. Let’s hope reforms to the listing rules after the Lord Hill report will cut the paperwork around prospectuses and encourage more issuers to tap into the growing army of DIY investors.

The PrimaryBid app is also playing an important role in linking London-listed companies with individual investors.

As Jen Hill discovers in our first feature, accessibility remains a thorny subject even in the more retail-friendly world of trusts where illiquidity and a lack of stock to trade discourages natural supporters among wealth management firms.

Looking at the varied performance of the 2021 debutants, it’s clear you don’t always want access to the latest launch. Fortunately, few, if any, private investors bought stock in Petershill Partners, the Goldman Sachs spin-off that has lost a quarter of its value since floating in October. It accounted for £1bn or over a quarter of the money raised by investment company IPOs, showing that a truer figure might be £2.8bn.