Was 2023 a bad year for IPOs?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When private companies around the world want to raise cash, they can do so by starting a process to list on a stock exchange. This is known as an IPO, or initial public offering.
Analysts watch such public listings to gauge the health of an economy.
In 2021, IPOs were booming, but in 2023 there's been a big drop in activity - with a record low number of companies choosing to offer their shares publicly on stock exchanges in the US, UK and Europe.
What's going on, and why does it matter when IPOs don't do well?
(Picture: The hand of a man holding a phone, monitoring trading data on his phone, tablet, and computer. Credit: Getty Images)
Produced and presented by Frey Lindsay
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Something mysterious plagues County Mayo on the West Coast of Ireland, and its legendary Gaelic football team. |
| 0:06.1 | Sometimes I think there's something sinister going on. |
| 0:09.4 | I believe in the curse. I think it's real. |
| 0:11.6 | Listen to the curious tale of The Mayo Curse on Amazing Sports Stories from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:17.9 | Search for amazing sports stories wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:23.6 | You're listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Frey Lindsay. |
| 0:27.8 | 20203 has been, in some respects, a disappointing year for what are known as initial public offerings or IPOs. |
| 0:34.4 | That's when companies offer their shares to the public for the first time. There were some |
| 0:38.4 | highly anticipated IPOs this year, which produced mixed results. And that's what we're getting |
| 0:43.5 | into today on Business Daily. How was 2023 for IPOs? If you would describe 2023 in IPOs in, let's say |
| 0:51.5 | five words. It's been very, very tough. |
| 0:54.8 | We'll also look ahead to 2024, |
| 0:56.7 | and we're going to talk about what it tells us about the economy |
| 0:59.5 | when IPOs are or aren't doing well. |
| 1:02.7 | IPOs tend to be an indicator that things are going pretty well |
| 1:07.0 | for a lot of the global, call it middle class and up. |
| 1:22.6 | That's the tech marketing and automation firm Clavio, ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange on its |
| 1:28.3 | first day of public trading. Along with Clavio, there were a flurry of other high-profile public |
| 1:33.3 | listings late this year. Instacart, the San Francisco-based grocery delivery company known for helping |
| 1:38.7 | customers with their supermarket needs is now on the stock market. The company shares |
| 1:43.5 | is a firm is aiming for a valuation of more than $52 billion for its initial public |
| 1:49.4 | offering. The chip designer made the announcement... |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.