Recently in IPOs Category

Just a little titbit that popped up on the Stock Exchange this afternoon. BlackRock, through its UK Absolute Alpha Fund, owns 9% of property's newest listed company, LxB Retail.

The giant US investment manager also bought into the IPO of Nick Leslau and Mike Brown's Max Property Group, to the tune of 12%.

Compared to its huge size, BlackRock has never been that into UK property, with only a £1.3bn open-ended fund to its name. But it obviously feels that backing good management teams in the listed sector is a winner.

An interesting little point from last night's lecture on capital raising in the public and private markets, from KBC Peel Hunt's Alex Vaughan.

He says, if you've got an IPO planned, you'd better be underway by FRIDAY at the latest. Anyone not on the road speaking to potential investors by then would be better of waiting until next year.

In general his message was that the public market is willing to look at IPOs, but you need a fantastic track record, as investoprs would rather back a secondary offering from an already existing team - and this is where the most money has been raised from the stockmarket this year.