Irish stock exchange ‘optimistic’ on 2023 IPOs

Euronext Dublin, the operator of the Irish Stock Exchange, is “optimistic” that it will secure initial public offerings (IPO) in 2023 after failing to attract new listings last year, according to its head of listings.

“We’d be optimistic of new listings in Dublin, but I think it would probably be weighted to the second half of the year. That’s the message we’re getting from investment banks,” said Niall Jones, Euronext Dublin’s director of listings, ahead of the launch on Thursday of the company’s fifth IPOready training programme.

This year’s IPOready intake includes Sigma Retail Partners, a retail asset management company that previously looked at an IPO in 2018; green energy business UrbanVolt; and accounting software firm Big Red Cloud.

Also among the 14 companies are mobile and cloud security specialist CWSI; security products supplier Fortus; and Inclusio, a technology platform that tracks diversity and inclusion in both the private and public sectors, which this week unveiled plans to create 80 new jobs following a €6.2 million investment from Enterprise Ireland and a number of venture capitalists.

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Euronext Dublin established an Irish market advisory committee last year to develop a number of proposals to bring to government to help reboot the Irish market for listings.

The company’s pre-Budget 2023 submission to the Government called for tax incentives to be introduced to allow entrepreneurs to sell some of their own shares in a company as part of an IPO. It also urged that a tax credit scheme to reduce the costs of accessing public markets for small- to medium-sized Irish businesses be put in place.

Daryl Byrne, chief executive of Euronext Dublin, said that the committee was also working on developing a potential “mechanism” where institutional investors and family offices could come together to take a 10-20 per cent “cornerstone investment” in a company going through an IPO.

Others firms taking part in the IPOready programme include Korec, a provider of surveying equipment and mapping systems; outsourced customer communications specialist Mail Metrics; medical billing business MedServ; and Neurent Medical, which has developed a device to provide relief for people suffering from a chronic runny nose.

ReaDI-Watch, a software firm that helps companies manage research and development programmes, and tech start-up Seeyou complete the group.

The objective of the IPOready programme, which has seen 44 companies graduate since it started in 2015, is to equip participating businesses with an in-depth understanding of all sources of finance available to them and determine which is most suited to their needs.

However, only three companies have come to the market in Dublin in the past four years: Uniphar, the healthcare group that raised €150 million in an IPO in July 2019; Corre Energy, a developer of underground storage solutions for renewable energy that floated in September 2021; and medtech firm HealthBeacon, which in December 2021 became the first IPOready alumnus to take the plunge.