Goldman Sachs (GS) chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein knows that there haven’t been too many IPOs in the past 14 months, but believes that the backlog will be cleared at some point in 2016.
Blankfein was speaking on Tuesday morning at the Credit Suisse Financial Services Forum, when he said: “Companies that need to finance tend to be moved back in the queue, but they still get done. You see a lot of pent-up IPO demand, especially as the private funding is drying up a bit. We expect more IPOs.”
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, Blankfein pointed out that last year’s record volume actually came in below prior cycle peaks when adjusted for overall market cap. He added that there is still a lot of corporate consolidation opportunity, particularly in areas like industrials, mining, energy, food, media and telecom — although cautioned that such interest will be difficult to satisfy “if the financing markets don’t cooperate.”