Points to watch on equity capital markets transactions

The new year appears to hold considerable promise for the world economy and equity markets are in rude health. The years following the credit crunch with debt finance hard to come by saw a number of corporates launch rights issues to obtain funding whether to strengthen their capital position to refinance debt or to prevent having to make disposals to raise working capital.

Now it appears that corporates are tapping the equity markets to raise capital for other reasons including financing M&A activity. The IPO market also appears to be making a comeback after a...