After best-ever start to a year, $49 billion Asia IPO boom likely to taper off

As in the U.S., initial public offering activity out of Asia has had its strongest-ever start to a year. That frenzy for new shares is likely to taper off as demand falls back to earth in the next few months.

Asian companies, like their global peers, notched their best first quarter for listings ever, thanks to a flood of liquidity during the pandemic, super-low interest rates, and rallying stock markets. The firms raised $49.3 billion through first-time share sales at home and abroad — a 154% jump over the same period in 2020, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

IPOs globally raised an unprecedented $215 billion, with almost half of that haul coming from the record wave of issuance by special-purpose acquisition companies in the U.S.