Investment banks could post their highest revenues from European equity capital markets activity since the crisis began when they begin to report numbers next month, in a sign that the business might at last be on the up after years of stop-start activity. Although global ECM activity so far during the first quarter is 9% down from a year earlier due to a slow few months in the US, according to Thomson Reuters data, in Europe activity is up 36% after a flurry of bumper deals. The region has seen more IPOs priced and launched in the first 10 weeks of the year than during the whole of 2012 (see Top News story). High-profile deals in the quarter include the €2.8bn rights issue by Austrian bank rbi, the US$2.5bn-equivalent overnight sale of recruitment agency adecco and the €1.3bn IPO of French cable firm altice, with the latter potentially raising more in weeks if it wins the battle against Bouygues to buy SFR.
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