European defense, Baby Shark and Fannie-Freddie: What's important about IPOs by Nov. 23

Several large defense companies from Europe have started preparing for IPOs. Shares of the creator of Baby Shark, the most popular video on YouTube, collapsed below its IPO price after soaring in debut trading. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman urged the White House not to pursue the IPOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The main IPO market events of the week are in our selection.

- A number of major European arms developers - Franco-German tank maker KNDS, British Doncasters Group and Czechoslovak Group (CSG) - have started preparing for IPOs in a bid to take advantage of investor demand for defense stocks, the Financial Times reported, citing sources. According to the British newspaper's interlocutors, CSG is targeting a listing in Amsterdam with a valuation of around €30 billion, which could put it among the continent's most expensive defense companies, while Doncasters is targeting Wall Street. KNDS confirmed working on an "IPO readiness" project.

- One of the world's largest crypto exchanges Kraken confidentially filed for an IPO in the United States, planning to go public in the first quarter of 2026 - before the midterm elections, writes Reuters. The company's valuation reached $20 billion in its latest funding round, jumping by a third in less than two months amid President Donald Trump's support for the sector. Participants of the crypto market are forcing the listing, as the next midterm elections to the US Congress in November 2026, the Republicans may lose positions in Parliament. Kraken itself is actively diversifying its business: the exchange launched stock trading and spent $1.6 billion to buy derivatives platforms NinjaTrader and Small Exchange.

- Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison plans to dual-list AS Watson Group, which describes itself as the world's largest health and beauty retailer by number of stores, in the first half of 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. Watson expects to raise a total of up to $2 billion in IPOs in Hong Kong and London, they said. CK Hutchison had previously delayed taking Watson public due to the pandemic and weak investor interest, but the current market rebound has reopened a window of opportunity, the Journal noted. Watson was founded more than 180 years ago and now operates a chain of 17,000 stores in more than 30 countries under various brands including Watsons, ParknShop, Fortress and Watson's Wine. It also owns the ICI Paris XL beauty salon chain and The Perfume Shop, the largest perfume retailer in the UK.

- Uzbekistan is preparing to make the National Investment Fund (UzNIF) the country's first issuer on the London Stock Exchange. According to Bloomberg sources, the authorities of Central Asia's largest country by population are planning a dual listing of UzNIF in London and Tashkent as early as the first quarter of 2026, pushing back the timing of gold mining giant Navoi Mining's listing. UzNIF's portfolio has been restructured to increase its investment appeal: the number of portfolio companies has been reduced from 18 to 15, but assets under management have increased to $1.93 billion by obtaining additional stakes in portfolio companies, as well as a 30% stake in Uzpromstroybank.

- Shares of South Korea's The Pinkfong Company, creator of the viral hit Baby Shark, jumped at the opening of the debut trading after the IPO in Seoul on November 18, but the next day fell below the offering price. Pinkfong ended the last day of the trading week at 32,200 won ($21.8), a 15 percent discount to the IPO price of 38,000 won. The offering was accompanied by a frenzy of demand: the order book was oversubscribed 600 times, and on the first day of trading the growth reached 62%.

- The IPO of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is now "impractical and undesirable," said billionaire U.S. investor Bill Ackman, whose fund holds positions in both companies. Instead of an initial public offering of U.S. government-owned shares, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities, which already trade on the over-the-counter market, should simply be transferred to the New York Stock Exchange, Ackman suggested. He estimated that this process could take several weeks and would provide a combined capitalization of the companies of about $400 billion. The Trump administration is considering such an IPO as early as the end of 2025, the director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) William Pulte said in October. According to Reuters, merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a single company for listing is not being considered, as it would require parliamentary approval.

- Nasdaq and the Singapore Exchange (SGX) will allow simultaneous listing on their platforms, the Financial Times reports. The exchanges have agreed to introduce from 2026 a procedure allowing companies with a capitalization of S$2 billion ($1.5 billion) or more to submit to regulators a single set of documents to enter both platforms. The process will be much simpler than other dual listing schemes. The new scheme is designed to help the SGX, which faces an excess of delistings over IPOs, to attract Asian technology companies that have gone to the U.S. for higher liquidity in recent years.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor