Floats sunk by credit crunch

Stock market flotations around the world halved in the first half of this year as the credit crunch and slowing economic growth hit investors' appetite for new issues.

By this time last year, 702 companies had made initial public offerings of their shares but, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, this year there hve been just 333 such offerings.

And the amount raised by companies coming to market has dropped by 41% to $73.2 billion (£37 billion), the lowest since 2005.

The lack of flotations has had a major knock-on effect on investment banks, which were already suffering from losses and writedowns in their fixedinterest divisions.

Underwriting fees usually account for a large proportion of the banks' profits, but these have fallen by almost 50% this year to $2.42 billion.

There have been exceptions, with the flotation of credit card giant Visa which raised $19.7 billion earlier this year, the second-biggest IPO ever.

It ranked behind last year's $22 billion flotation of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.