This change to the IPO space comes amid ongoing upheaval in global equity markets during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Feb. 8).
The average number of book-building days for European listings, in which banks seek investor bids following an IPO announcement, has fallen to a record low of five this year so far, down from 10 in 2022, the FT said, citing data from Dealogic. The report said this trend is fueled by unease that a longer window risks exposing the offering to sudden market volatility.
Prague-based Czechoslovak Group, Europe’s largest-ever defense IPO, had a book-building period of only three days, the FT said, while Austria’s Asta Energy was marketed for just four days.
“The name of the game in European IPOs since the end of the financial crisis has been de-risking,” said Antoine Noblot, head of equity capital markets for northern Europe, the Middle East and Africa at BNP Paribas.
The FT noted that book-building periods have shortened around the world since the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID pandemic. Again citing data from Dealogic, the report added that the average length of the marketing period for American IPOs has fallen to almost a record low so far in 2026.
Elsewhere from the IPO space, PYMNTS wrote recently about the way IPOs have begun signaling cryptocurrency’s growing place in the institutional finance world.
Traditionally, that report said, the crypto firms that went public were usually easy to place into two camps: exchanges that made money on trading volume, or miners that monetized cheap electricity and specialized hardware. Those firms could reap enormous profits in bull markets, but their business models tended to be cyclical, making them less attractive to long-term institutional investors.
“The crypto IPO class of 2025, and the pipeline already visible for 2026, looks materially different,” PYMNTS wrote. “The story of these blockchain businesses, outside of SPAC-driven crypto treasury firms, appears to be the plumbing. Think: custody, payments and stablecoins, compliance, and interoperability.”
The companies that went public last year, or are preparing to in 2026, show that the “center of gravity in digital assets” has moved from speculation and toward infrastructure, the report added, citing the example of crypto-infrastructure firm BitGo’s recent IPO.
That company was one of the digital asset firms that late last year received conditional approval by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a bank.
