A Study on African IPO Markets: A Focus on IPO in the Institutional Part of South Africa, Nigeria, and South Korea

This survey examines the characteristics of initial public offering (IPO) markets for two African exchanges as well as Asian exchanges from 2000 to 2016. These characteristics include an overview of the listing criteria, pricing and allocation of IPOs, the cost of going public, and the IPO valuations of African Exchanges and the Asian Exchange. The number of IPOs during the 17-year period for the two African exchanges were relatively small compared to the Asian exchange. Our analysis also shows some variations in the listing requirements of going public among the African and the Asian exchanges. Finally, our analysis indicates that all exchanges considered in this review employed the international practice of a hybrid IPO mechanism of fixed price and book building. This survey is expected to be used by those in academia as a basic reference resource for further empirical research. Also, it will be helpful for regulators and the exchanges in redesigning their markets to boost IPO culture in African exchanges. It will assist companies looking to go public in an emerging market to better understand the listing criteria involved. We conclude with some areas where further research is required.