EARLY successes bode well for firms wanting to raise money through European stock markets in 2015, according to bankers who earn handsome fees from such deals, which surged last year.

    Santander found investors eager for a 7.5 billion euro (US$8.9 billion) share sale announced Thursday, with books being covered in just an hour.

    And despite the New Year holiday, bankers seized the opportunity Jan. 2 to relaunch German cable operator Tele Columbus’s Frankfurt stock market listing.

    Some bankers are expecting around 10 initial public offerings (IPOs) of shares to be launched across Europe in the coming weeks.

    “What was notable about last year is that you did see the full gamut of issuance,” said Martin Thorneycroft, head of syndicate at Morgan Stanley.

    “Whether the market maintains that volume remains to be seen. It certainly could, but it will require market cooperation.”

    Tele Columbus’s offering was delayed amid market turmoil in the fourth quarter of 2014, and bankers expect other companies which postponed capital raising to try again. The share listings of firms including British bank Aldermore and French engineering services group Spie were among those postponed during the period.

    Beyond share sales, bankers expect merger and acquisition (M&A) related financing to provide some of the bigger and juicier deals for the year. Among those, U.K. telecoms firm BT is expected to hold a rights issue for its acquisition of EE.

    “Right now we haven’t got a list of monster deals,” one senior equity capital market banker said. “But it’s very, very market dependent. The real question is stuff we can’t see — major corporate carve-outs, big M&A capital raisings.”(SD-Agencies)