The New York Stock Exchange is on track to steal back the crown for US stock market listings from its rival Nasdaq this year after tapping into the booming market for blank cheque companies.
Companies have raised $66bn through listings on NYSE this year compared with $61bn on Nasdaq, according to Dealogic, with nearly two-thirds of the proceeds raised on NYSE coming from special purpose acquisition companies — Spacs — which have become one of the hottest fads on Wall Street.
The two exchanges have attracted a similar number of Spacs, but NYSE has raised twice as much as Nasdaq by landing the larger deals, including the year’s biggest — a $4bn offering from Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square in July.