German stock exchange books highest number of IPOs since 2007

The Frankfurt stock exchange said Monday that 24 companies went public in 2015, the highest number of initial public offerings (IPOs) since 2007.

In terms of the size of capital raised from the new listings, this year was also the best in eight years, with the total issue volume amounting to seven billion euros ($7.7 billion), Deutsche Boerse said in a statement.

By comparison, 19 companies went public in 2014 with a total volume of four billion euros.

The single biggest IPO was Covestro, the polymers division of chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer, which raised 1.5 billion euros when it went public in October.

In July, the real estate financier Deutsche Pfandbriefbank raised 1.16 billion euros via its IPO and Scout24, a digital marketplace specialising in the automotive and real estate sectors, was the third-biggest listing in Frankfurt this year with a volume of 1.02 billion euros.

Among the other stock market debutants this year were car parts maker Schaeffler and container shipping giant Hapag Lloyd.

In 2016, the most eagerly awaited IPOs will include divisions of the two energy giants E.ON and RWE.