The year of 2014 was generally a time when initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions accelerated - good news for wealth managers seeking clients.

The year of 2014 was generally a time when initial public offerings and mergers and acquisition deals accelerated, enriching shareholders and business owners – good news for revenue-hungry wealth managers searching for clients.

And certainly there have been some eye-catching deals this year, such as the $26 billion IPO of Chinese e-commerce business Alibaba. That deal propelled Jack Ma into the ranks of being Asia’s richest man. (Alibaba, it should be noted, is also involved in providing wealth management products.) A lively IPO market and heightened appetite for trade deals is also typically welcome news for private equity and venture capital players looking to get a decent exit.

And in some regions it appears the trend of IPOs has been for more of them and in larger sizes in total. However, a closer look at some of the biggest hubs for IPOs – New York, London and Hong Kong – suggests there hasn’t been a straight-line upward move in values/volumes since 2013. Thanks to data collected exclusively for this publication by WealthMonitor, a research and data-tracking organisation, figures, which run up to 30 November, show a mixed picture. (The WealthMonitor figures on IPOs exclude listings of funds, special purpose vehicles and real estate investment trusts. The M&A data includes all deals valued at more than $5 million; where the deal value isn’t disclosed, deal has been entered based on turnover of a target of more than $10 million.)

In the US, the trend is clearly upwards. There were a total of 265 initial public offerings in 2014, from 204 in 2013, and up from 121 in 2012. In value terms, the trend is higher, with offering sizes at $78.055 billion in the past 12 months, up from $47.1 billion in 2013 and $36.121 billion in 2012. Uncle Sam’s figures on merger and acquisition deal values and sizes also show a rise: there were 4,271 M&A deals in the US for 2014, up from 3,933 in the previous year and 4,080 in 2012.

Part of the rise in IPO values this year can be accounted for by one deal – the Alibaba IPO – that was held on the New York Stock Exchange, much to the chagrin of the Asian financial bourses. But as the US economy looks set to be leading other developed nations out of a post-2008 slump, and that is probably translating into IPO numbers as well. Other big IPO names included GrubHub, an online food ordering service; GoPro; Virgin America and Lending Club.

In Hong Kong, meanwhile, the WealthMonitor data shows that there were 76 IPOs in 2014 worth a collective $13.23 billion, a fall from $19.642 billion a year earlier and 93 deals, but up from 56 deals in 2012 with a collective value of $10,699 billion. In terms of M&A, Hong Kong chalked up 128 deals, down from 130 in 2013 but up from 99 in 2012. In value terms, mergers and acquisitions of $33.618 billion were logged in 2014, a rise from $22.163 billion. Data from Dealogic, meanwhile, paints a somewhat different picture; deals lifted Kong’s IPO market to give its strongest performance in three years (source: Financial Times.)

Then there is the UK and the country did see more merger and acquisition values and IPO action in 2014. WealthMonitor logged total 92 IPOs in the year, up from 69 a year earlier and 42 in 2012. Value-wise, initial public offerings in 2014 stood at $20.85 billion, up from $12.7 billion in the previous 12 months.

On the M&A front, the strengthening picture in the UK, for example, is caused by a general improvement in the economy but growth is still relatively slow, encouraging firms to expand via acquisition rather than organically, according to Avondale, a specialist in M&A.

A big improvement

"2014 was the best IPO year since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007. A number of records would likely have been broken if there hadn't been that unexpected dip in the final quarter. Despite the continuing geopolitical uncertainty and although the global economy developed less dynamically than expected, all the major stock exchange centers saw strong growth," Roger Müller, IPO leader at EY Switzerland, said in a report.

"The market was supported in 2014 by the low interest rate policy of the central banks, the high rating levels of many firms, generally low volatility, and earnings by new entrants that are clearly above the market level," Müller continued.

Muller’s data adds to those of the WealthMonitor research and reinforces the point that 2014 was a busy year for IPOs in the US. According to EY, the North American continent witnessed $95.2 billion being collected at 288 IPOs. The last time that the US stock exchanges saw so many new entrants was in 2004, and there has never been so much money released since 1999.

The Asia/Pacific region, EY said, reported the most companies venturing onto the stock exchange floor: $81.4 billion were released in 546 IPOs across the region. In the EMEIA region (Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa) the 353 companies arriving at the stock exchanges for the first time ever achieved revenues of $74.9 billion.

Perhaps surprisingly for those used to negative headlines about Europe, EY said that the European IPO market saw numbers rise 63 per cent to 259 from a year before, and issue volume doubled to $62 billion. The biggest IPO in Europe was the one made by the NN Group, the insurance division of financial group ING, with an issue volume of $2.4 billion.