Data prepared exclusively for this news service shows that the value of M&A and IPO activity among US and Western European businesses fell in the first half of this year from a year earlier, slowing these sources of new wealth.

Mergers, acquisitons, share floats of companies and other liquidity events creating new wealth have fallen in Western European and US-based businesses in 2016 so far from the same period a year ago, suggesting wealth managers must compete more fiercely to tap the pipeline.

Data exclusively provided to this news service from WealthMonitor, a research firm, shows that the offering size of IPOs involving US firms was $6.128 billion from January to June, comprising 39 IPOs; in the January-June period of 2015, the comparable figures were $17.765 billion and 85, respectively.

Such figures, while they do not necessarily include all corporate activities and some unlisted, privately-held firms, can be indicative of the potential new wealth on the table for wealth managers to pursue. At a time of continued economic uncertainties in some regions, it is ever more important for private banks, advisors and other wealth industry players to get detailed data on where new money is being generated, and for whom.

As far as M&A deals involving US-based firms were concerned, the January-June 2016 period saw a total of 2,444 deals, with a value in total of $575.5 billion, the WealthMonitor figures showed.

For Western European firms, there were 80 IPOs in this January-June 2016 period, worth €12.48 billion ($13.9 billion), versus 102 and $27.4 billion, respectively, a year earlier. For M&A transactions, in January-June 2015, there were 2,669 deals, worth a total of €347.83 billion, and this year for the same six-month period, there were 2,770 deals, but the value fell to €291.5 billion.

M&A figures include all deals valued over $5 million. Where the deal value is not disclosed, the deal has been entered based on turnover of target exceeding $10 million.            

IPO data is based on announced corporate listings requiring book-building process, excluding listing of funds, real estate investment trusts, Special Purpose Acquisition Vehicles and follow-on offerings. The data is also based on the dominant geography of the issuer company (Western Europe and US). By Western Europe, the countries concerned for this data are UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria.