IPOs quietly explode

NEW YORK – It’s almost as if it happened when we weren’t looking. Initial public offerings and merger and acquisition activity quietly surged this year to levels not seen since 2000.

This past week alone, there were $85 billion in announced deals, including Sprint Corp.’s $35 billion acquisition of Nextel Communications Inc. It was the busiest week for M&A in four years. This should not be interpreted as an excuse to party like it’s 1999, analysts warn, but in the near-term it’s encouraging for stocks.

“It’s a positive sign that shows confidence in the economy,” said Richard Peterson, chief market strategist at Thomson Financial, who noted that this week’s value exceeded the totals of some recent months.

M&A activity has been slowly climbing back to pre-recession levels, with 7,700 deals so far this year valued at a total of $742 billion, according to Thomson Financial. In a further signal of rising corporate activity, 18 new companies were brought to market during the past week, the most IPOs in a single week since 26 companies went public during the week ending Aug. 11, 2000. So far this year, 216 IPOs have raised $43 billion, exceeding the total raised through the 221 IPOs from the previous three years combined, according to Renaissance Capital’s IPOhome.com.