There is a pipeline of companies ready to replace the recent departures from the Oslo Stock Exchange when the market and the time are right.
Exchange chief executive Oyvind Amundsen said uncertainties from inflation to interest rates to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have been the main hurdles for fresh IPOs in what is historically among the most important sources of capital for the shipping industry.
“What we see is that there are companies, especially in the shipping and offshore sector, that are interested and ready to get started with the IPO process when the market and the timing are correct,” he said.
“We believe that when we have a more stable situation again ... that we will have companies coming towards us.”
Speaking to TradeWinds in June ahead of Nor-Shipping, Amundsen said he was hopeful for a slew of IPOs in the remainder of the year.
The opposite has happened: GC Rieber and two Andreas Sohmen-Pao-backed outfits, BW Ideol and BW Epic Kosan, have delisted, while his BW LPG and Greece’s Okeanis Eco Tankers have announced their intention to take second listings in New York. Ro-ro lessor Gram Car Carriers has taken a secondary, over-the-counter listing in New York, as well.
A fourth Sohmen-Pao company — BW Offshore — is launching a mandatory offer for its Oslo-listed shares, but the company did not discuss delisting in its stock exchange filings.
The departure of the Sohmen-Pao companies came after he argued the exchange has become less agile, the kroner unfavourable and trading liquidity higher on the New York exchanges at Pareto Securities’ Energy Conference in September.
“The result is the statistics are starting to clearly support US listings,” he said during the event’s keynote. “Oslo will need to consider how to stay competitive because the statistics will have to speak for themselves.”
Amundsen for his part, cautioned that New York can be a “good time” equities market, where investors are only interested in the upcycles, but flee when the inevitable downturn comes.
Furthermore, in Oslo, listings can be done in a matter of weeks, rather than months, helping companies capture those upcycles on top of a strong cadre of analysts employed at top banks and an educated investor base.
“[We have] quite a high number of very professional analysts in Norway,” Amundsen said.
Across the Atlantic, “I actually think it is close to zero covering the shipping sector … especially from the big banks in New York.
“It’s a very different focus here. It’s one of the main areas of the stock exchange. In the US it’s a small sector, even if the market cap is bigger.”
The exchange has also been reaching out to other potential listing candidates, holding what Amundsen called an “IPO Day” in Athens this autumn and planning a similar event in Singapore in March.
Amundsen’s hope is that some of those companies and the ones he expected to list in 2023 will make their debuts on the Oslo Stock Exchange early next year.
There are indications two of the issues causing uncertainty were easing, with both the OECD and the Norwegian government suggesting inflation is trending down, while the OECD forecasts Norges Bank will keep its policy rate at 4.5% into 2025.
“Shipping is one of the biggest industries in Norway and it has been since before the Vikings,” Amundsen said. “It will not disappear.”
