Chris Hughes, Columnist

What if Italy Votes Yes?

A surprise "yes" vote would reopen market for new equity.

November 28, 2016 at 1:15 PM UTC

Chris Hughes is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals. Previously, he worked for Reuters Breakingviews, the Financial Times and the Independent newspaper.

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This weekend's Italian referendum will either seal a terrible year for European bank equity issuance or end 2016 with an unexpected party. Banks have raised a mere 5.1 billion euros ($5.4 billion) selling new shares on European exchanges so far in 2016, Bloomberg data show. There has been just one issue above 1 billion euros, ignoring CaixaBank SA's sale of 1.3 billion euros of existing treasury shares in September.

Rewind back to the end of 2015 and Standard Chartered Plc was raising 3.4 billion pounds ($4.2 billion) in a rights issue, while Credit Suisse Group AG was selling new shares worth 4.7 billion Swiss francs ($4.6 billion). From 2013 to 2015, banks sold 122 billion euros of new stock on European bourses.