markets-hub.com

New York City is ready to reclaim its throne.

After two consecutive years of losing to London as the leading location for pricings of global initial public stock offerings, it looks like the Big Apple is on track to finish the year back on top, according to a recent report from Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research.

Using data pulled from the Securities Data Co.’s Platinum database, the report found that, so far this year, companies have raised $23.64 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange combined, representing a nearly 73% increase in proceeds from the comparable year-ago period. Of course, the $17.9 billion offering from credit card processor Visa Inc. in March contributed a great deal to the growth. But, “take away the Visa offering and New York would have a collective volume of about $5.7 billion,” the report found.

Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange and the London Alternative Investment Market together have recorded $498.9 million in global IPO proceeds through the first fourth months of 2008, which is down 96% from $14.76 billion in the comparable year-ago period.

Who will win the battle for the title of IPO King come year end? It could be New York, based on the Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research data, but there is eight months to go.