WA claims half the nation's IPOs for March quarter

Western Australia continued its high level of IPO activity, producing over half of the country's IPOs and raising just under half of the total combined capital during the March 2006 quarter.

Deloitte Corporate Finance's latest quarterly IPO survey, released today, found WA produced more IPO's in the three months to 31 March 2006 than any other state, with 12 IPO's that raised $74.2 million.

This compares to the national figure of 22 IPOs for a combined capital raising of $165 million for the three months to 31 March 2006.

IPO activity in Western Australia for the latest quarter was well down on the record-breaking December 2005 quarter, but this was boosted by the $741 million IPO of Alinta Infrastructure.

Western Australian companies - Perth-based Giralia Resources spin-off, Red Hill Iron and Northbridge-based consulting engineers VDM Group - led Australia's top five performing IPOs.

Red Hill Iron, which listed in February, raised $4 million and returned a gain of 157 per cent on its issue price, while VDM Group, which listed in February, raised $8.2 million and returned a gain of 74 per cent.

Both were above the average gain of 73 per cent for the five best performing IPOs.

The market average for the March quarter was 27 per cent.

Deloitte Corporate Finance Partner Tom Henderson said surging commodity prices and investor interest in Western Australia's natural resources were driving the high level of IPOs in the west.

In the previous corresponding quarter, Western Australia produced 8 IPOs that raised $47 million, while nationally there were 31 IPOs that raised $1.64 billion.

Calendar year 2005 produced 172 IPOs, raising a record $15.2 billion, up from 170 IPOs raising a total of $9.4 billion in the previous year.

Resource floats outnumbered industrials in the March 2006 quarter (15 versus 7) with gold, oil and gas and uranium IPOs the main drivers of the increase, accounting for 13 or more than half of all IPOs in the March 2006 quarter.

Below is the list of WA-based IPOs in the March 2006 quarter:

Company name Listing date $m raised Industry
Azumah Resources Ltd 9-Jan-06 6.0 Materials
Capital Intelligence Ltd 23-Jan-06 3.0 Consumer services
Red Hill Iron Ltd 14-Feb-06 4.0 Materials
VDM Group Ltd 15-Feb-06 8.2 Capital goods
Central Petroleum Ltd 7-Mar-06 25.0 Energy
Cortona Resources Ltd 21-Mar-06 3.0 Materials
Terrain Minerals Ltd 23-Mar-06 4.0 Materials
Richfield International Ltd 23-Mar-06 1.5 Transportation
Chalice Gold Mines Ltd 24-Mar-06 7.5 Materials
Encounter Resources Ltd 24-Mar-06 4.0 Materials
Refresh Group Ltd 28-Mar-06 3.0 Retail
Alloy Resources Ltd 29-Mar-06 5.0 Materials