Nasdaq Deputy Chairman - Freedom: global IPO market recovery will continue through 2026

Global capital markets are showing a marked recovery in IPO activity after a three-year slump, Nasdaq Vice Chairman Robert McCue told Freedom Broker. He said that after a record-breaking 2020-2021, when there were about 1,100 IPOs on Nasdaq alone, there was a lull period in 2022-2024. However, the current year has seen a renewed interest in public offerings, and this growth is global in nature, according to the Nasdaq deputy chairman.

"After a short break in April, the market recovered quickly - first with an eToro offering, then a Chime offering, and activity has remained strong ever since. (...) Based on the companies I'm talking to right now, this trend will continue at least through 2026 - many are already actively preparing for flotations," McCooey said.

He emphasized that despite the U.S. shutdown, "globally, the flow of IPOs has not abated." In particular, the Chinese market - and Hong Kong in particular - "remains very strong", London "is showing signs of recovery" and the US market is "consistently active". Growth across sectors, including technology (CoreWeave), financials (eToro, Chime), crypto (Gemini) and international offerings (Chagee), indicates a "sustained global recovery" rather than just "isolated spikes," the Nasdaq deputy chairman said.

A top executive at the main IPO platform for tech companies in the U.S. noted a change in the long-term trend: while the number of public companies in the U.S. steadily declined from the late 1990s until 2014, the reverse process began. While giants like SpaceX or Stripe, as well as many artificial intelligence companies, remain non-public thanks to access to significant amounts of venture capital, they will "still eventually go public," McCooey said. Sooner or later, their investors will start looking for liquidity, and "at some point, the only real source of that liquidity will be the public market," he concluded.

Watch the full interview with Nasdaq Vice Chairman Robert McCue on Freedom Academy's Youtube channel.

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