Volatility has cooled down+regulations are loosened, and small and medium-sized investment banks sing the 2025 IPO recovery march

The Zhitong Finance App learned that investment banks, which are smaller compared to superinvestment banking giants such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have given very optimistic forecasts for the stock capital market for the rest of the year. According to reports, Wall Street's small and medium-sized investment banks Evercore Inc. and Stifel Financial Corp. take a positive position on the level of activity in future initial public offerings (IPOs) in the stock market. These two major investment banks are betting that overall market fluctuations will be drastically reduced and that the White House's agenda to relax market supervision will stimulate larger stock issuance activities.

Evercore's performance report released on Wednesday local time showed that its stock and bond underwriting expenses for the second quarter increased 4% year over year to US$32.2 million. “Our stock underwriting business unexpectedly rebounded in market activity in May and June, and we expect these positive IPO trends to continue after entering the second half of the year.” Evercore Chairman and CEO John Weinberg said during the performance call.

During the second quarter, Evercore participated in the stock market IPOs of Chime Financial Inc., Hinge Health Inc., MNTN Inc. and Omada Health Inc., and implemented follow-up financing plans for Birkenstock Holdings Plc and Waystar Holding Corp.

Mid-market investment bank underwriting type revenue

Meanwhile, another small to medium investment bank, Stifel's share finance revenue declined by 3.7% due to issuance volume, to 46.2 million US dollars. But that didn't stop CEO Ronald Kruszewski from being optimistic about the IPO trend in the second half of the year.

“We have seen early signs of a recovery in broader IPOs. Subsequent financing is still strongly driven by private equity, which is still the main issuer.” The CEO said during the company's performance conference call.

During the second quarter, Stifel served as joint IPO bookkeeper for Smartstop Self Storage REIT, Etoro Group Ltd. and Hinge Health, and participated in the subsequent release plans of QxO Inc., a subsidiary of Brad Jacobs, one of the most active issuers in the US this year.

The views of the two investment bank executives are almost in agreement with those of the large investment banking institutions. Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said that although the issuance of IPOs in the stock market slowed for most of April and May, convertible bonds, follow-up financing, and large-scale IPO issuance all accelerated at the end of the quarter. Goldman Sachs Group investment bankers also said that companies can enter the IPO market relatively freely compared to previous years, but the pace of listing assets supported by private equity is still slow.

Goldman Sachs's second-quarter earnings report shows that, fueled by market fluctuations caused by the US government's trade policy, Goldman Sachs (GS.US) stock trading division set a new revenue record for the second consecutive quarter, setting the highest trading revenue in Wall Street history. Goldman Sachs Q2 stock trading revenue reached 4.3 billion US dollars, about 600 million US dollars higher than analysts' expectations, and an increase of 100 million US dollars over the first quarter. Goldman Sachs investment banking business revenue unexpectedly jumped to 2.19 billion US dollars during the same period, far exceeding analysts' average expectations. These impressive performances also drove the company's overall profit to US$3.7 billion (US$10.91 per share), up 22% from US$3.04 billion (US$8.62 per share) in the same period last year, exceeding market expectations.

According to another report, Raymond James Financial, another small and medium-sized investment bank on Wall Street, announced an unexpected 15% year-on-year increase in its stock underwriting revenue last week. Company executives told investors that after disruptions in early April due to unprecedented tariff policies, market sentiment had improved dramatically since Trump continued to drastically reduce reciprocal tariffs in mid-April.

“Maybe tomorrow we will be negatively impacted again. Who knows, but apparently the current market's IPO sentiment is much more positive than at the beginning of April.” Raymond James CEO Paul Shoukry said during the performance call.