Capital raising in Spain is up 70%, offsetting the lack of IPOs on the stock exchange.

The amount of capital raised by issuing shares is growing in Spain. It increased by 70% in the first half of 2023. This revival sufficiently compensates for the lack of companies going public - their activity has fallen by 82%.

The issuance of new shares increased by 12% in January-June. Such data is presented in the report of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) entitled "Key Performance Indicators of the Union Capital Market".

According to the Association, €23 million was raised in Spanish Open Public Offerings (OPOs) during January-June, resulting in a year-on-year decline of 82%. "Spanish markets noted extremely low levels of non-financial RPMs''organizations,'" AFME emphasizes.

But the drought on the national stock exchange has lasted for a long time, as shown by the fact that only eight companies have entered the exchange since 2008. In the last two years, four companies have entered the market: Línea Directa, Acciona Energía and Ecoener (in 2021), and Opdenergy (in 2022). In other words, no company entered the permanent market during this year. However, it is worth noting that several companies debuted on BME Growth, a segment for small capitalization companies that are looking to expand and have more forgiving conditions to start quoting. In 2022, 16 smaller companies have decided to start quoting on the former Alternative Securities Market (MAB). So far, two months before the end of 2023, eight stock exchange debuts have taken place on BME Growth: five''companies-Revenga Smart Solutions, Vanadi Coffee, Indexa Capital, Cox Energy and Greening-as well as three socimi companies-MilePro, Ktesios and Miciso.

Capital appreciation

Besides the lack of new companies on the Spanish stock exchange, the growth in the volume of capital increases is noteworthy. As AFME emphasizes, an increase of 70% in the first half of the year means an activation of activity compared to the previous year.

Besides capital increases and exits, the AFME report focuses on bond data. Interestingly, in the first six months of 2023, €6 billion worth of investment grade bonds have come onto the market, representing a year-on-year increase of 34%. Despite this growth, according to AFME data, bond issuance is still below pre-pandemic levels, 18% lower than in 2019 and 22% lower than in 2018. High yield bond issuance has fallen to zero in the first half of 2023 - after €1.1 billion in 2022 - the lowest level since 2009.

At the same time, new bank loans fell by 7% year-on-year in the first half of 2023''year, with a slight decrease compared to pre-pandemic levels (down 4% from 2019 and 3% below 2018 levels). Investment in risk capital fell by 44% in Spain in the first six months of this year, a larger decline than in the European Union (-25%) or the United States (-33%).

The level of competitiveness

The Spanish capital market ecosystem as a whole ranked 15th in the Association's competitiveness index, four places lower than in 2022. This index takes into account many factors that underpin an efficient and deep capital market: access to capital, liquidity of equity and currency markets, access to finance, digitalization and sustainability.