Europe’s IPO problem starts before the stock exchange: New study calls for deeper markets, more investment and larger listings

Berlin, September 15, 2026. The new study ‘How to revive Europe’s stock market listings’ by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Centre for European Reform and the Jacques Delors Centre, lays out how Europe could revive its equity markets. Between 2014-2025, 72 per cent of European listings issued shares with a value below €100 million, compared with 49 per cent in the US. And only 12 per cent achieve a market capitalization of at least €1 billion at the time of their initial public offering (IPO), compared with 29 per cent in the US.

Rather than relying on shortcuts such as lowering listing requirements or creating a single European exchange, the EU and its member states should focus on three areas:

⦁    Putting Europe’s savings to work: pension reform and greater retail investment should shift more household wealth into equities, improving valuations and liquidity.

⦁    Reducing fragmentation: market-driven integration of European stock markets would help attract larger listings. Policy-makers should consider a pan-European growth market for promising, young companies.

⦁    Strengthening the pipeline of firms ready to list. That means completing the single market, expanding late-stage growth capital and encouraging larger, higher-quality IPOs.

Claudia-Dominique Geiser, Senior Expert on EU Economic Policy, explained: “To improve European public equity markets, the diagnosis matters: Europe’s companies reach public markets too small. Incentivising more listings and lowering listing requirements will not necessarily generate more liquidity and attract institutional investors. Europe needs to help its firms grow first.”

Reviving Europe’s IPO market should be a priority as leaders reconvene this autumn. Europe needs to complete the innovation flywheel: from founding to scaling, listing and reinvestment.

    
James Green, Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform in Brussels, said: “Talent and training may be foundation for innovation, but a healthy risk-capital ecosystem is its fuel. As policy-makers work to strengthen Europe’s tech ecosystem, which is vital for its competitiveness and sovereignty, they cannot forget a major piece of the puzzle: well-functioning public equity markets.”

Marlene Schörner, Policy Fellow for EU Financial Markets at the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin and co-author of the report, said: “Trying to forcibly create a pan-European stock exchange to pool liquidity is tempting but would be putting the cart before the horse. The root of the problem is the fragmented regulatory environment and associated infrastructure barriers that make cross-border trading costly.”

Europe’s IPO problem is a scale-up problem made visible on the stock exchange.