What Europe can learn from Sweden’s booming IPO market
While Europe’s major financial hubs, such as London, Frankfurt, and Paris, grapple with a prolonged drought in public listings, the Stockholm Stock Exchange is leading the continent as the hottest market for initial public offerings. Companies listed in Sweden’s capital have raised nearly $2 billion so far in 2025 — more than eight times the volume seen in London and significantly outpacing financial centers in Madrid, Zurich, and Frankfurt, according to a CNBC calculation of FactSet data. The upcoming high-profile listings from home security giant Verisure and Nordic lender NOBA have also highlighted a trend that experts say is the result of a decades-long process . The Nordic nation’s success is, for the most part, attributed to a deeply ingrained national “equity culture”, a diverse pool of domestic capital and a supportive regulatory framework. It has something that “you won’t find anywhere else in Europe,” said Jens Plenov, head of equity capital markets (ECM) at DNB Carnegie. Plenov’s investment bank led the multibillion-dollar IPOs for Asker Healthcare and game development company Hacksaw earlier this year. A major driver of Sweden’s IPO boom, Plenov explained, is an “ecosystem of local capital that invests in local equities and is very IPO savvy.” This domestic capital provides a foundation for deals of all sizes. “If you look at the average retail investor, there’s a much larger proportion of people’s wealth invested in the public stock markets,” said Kasper Dichow, head of ECM, investment banking & equities at Nordea. “Sweden stands out in Europe.” Dichow’s team is involved in the upcoming IPOs of NOBA and Verisure. Culture boosted by policy About 70% of household wealth among Swedes is held in equity, compared to the European Union average of 59%, according to Eurostat statistics. Sweden’s Ministry of Finance has also suggested that seven in 10 of its residents hold investment funds directly, and they keep only about 10% of their financial assets in cash or bank deposits — the lowest level in Europe. “If you were in Stockholm, you’d talk to your taxi driver, and he will tell you about his latest investment,” said Plenov. “There’s a culture. There’s an ecosystem that’s built around it.” This cultural exposure towards acceptance of the relative risk inherent in equities, compared to bonds, has been achieved through decades of government policy. “I think it starts with the regulation, and that then drives the culture,” Nordea’s Dichow said. “It’s very much driven by a supportive regulatory environment.” The first Swedish mutual funds were launched in 1958, according to Fondbolagens förening , the Swedish investment fund association. But it wasn’t until 20 years later that the introduction of tax-incentivized savings funds kick-started the current phenomenon. By 1990, there were 1.7 million fund savings accounts in a country of then just over 8.5 million people. More recently, the introduction of the Investment Savings Account in 2012 has further cemented the behavioral shift toward investing in equities. In contrast, many pension funds in the United Kingdom have de-risked their portfolios due to regulation and some, such as ITV ‘s $2.36 billion fund, do not hold any stocks, according to FactSet data. In Sweden, the result of the multidecade process has been a strong domestic investment ecosystem. “Since long Sweden maintains a particularly active equity market in a European perspective, with high participation of both Retail and Family Office investors, as well as institutional capital managing savings and pension assets,” said Nicklas Fharm, head of equity capital markets at SEB. Fharm led the IPO for investment holding company Roko earlier this year. A mature ecosystem Beyond a willing public, the efficient IPO process in Sweden has also benefitted from years of consistent deal flow. For instance, IPOs often feature the use of “cornerstone” investors — large, reputable institutions that commit significant capital early in the IPO process. This typically provides a badge of quality for companies looking to go public. It also “gives the [company] certainty quite early on and gives the market comfort that some quality funds have bought into this and analyzed it,” said DNB Carnegie’s Plenov. “So, you de-risk the deal early.” Nasdaq , which runs the Stockholm exchange, has likewise made it easier for companies to operate a secondary listing in one of its other exchanges in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. This enables companies to diversify their investor base. In addition, a steady supply of companies backed by private equity and venture capital firms is filling up the pipeline to go public. “A lot of the quality IPO cases are born out of private equity heritage,” said Goran Svensson, head of equity capital markets in Sweden for Nordea. These investors have learned that a successful listing requires leaving value on the table for new public-market investors. “The private equity world has also learned that taking a company to the stock market requires there to be some upside going forward,” added Nordea’s Dichow. “They cannot squeeze every dollar out of it.” For Per Franzen, CEO of private equity firm EQT, an IPO is an “attractive exit alternative,” and his firm ensures its portfolio companies are always “IPO-ready” to maximize their options. EQT has sold 5.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.65 billion) worth of stock from its portfolio company Galderma this year, as the skincare giant’s shares have risen more than 125% since its IPO in March 2024. Despite the flurry of activity, the Sweden’s current IPO boom is only relative to a quiet Europe and remains far from the market’s all-time peak. The nearly $2 billion raised in 2025 to date is dwarfed by the over $11.5 billion achieved in Sweden during the global IPO frenzy of 2021. The market’s health is also contingent on the performance of its newest members. Investors, hurt by the downturn that followed the 2021 peak, are proceeding with caution. “At this early stage in the IPO cycle, we see that investors generally are being rather selective and focusing on track-record and prospects for profitable growth,” noted SEB’s Fharm. For now, the outlook remains positive. “We’re quite confident and positive about the pipeline and what it’s going to look like for the next 12 months,” said Nordea’s Dichow. “I think the 2026 is expected to be a big IPO year, not just in Sweden, but across the Nordics, with a lot of large cap IPOs.”
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