DealZone

Initial public offerings (IPOs) of companies from the so-called BRIC nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China — enjoyed their best-ever start to the year, according to Thomson Reuters data:

• BRIC IPO volumes for the beginning of 2010 are at their largest level, in terms of both value and number of issues, for any January on record.

• Asian IPO issuance for January 2010 to date has reached a similar record, in terms of value, being the largest January on record.

• BRIC IPOs account for 76% of total global IPO activity for the year so far. This is up from 5.6% in January 2009.

• Materials tops the industry breakdown this month with 35% of the activity. Energy & Power and High Technology come 2nd & 3rd respectively.

• China issuance accounted for 67% of the activity for January 2010 to date

• The largest BRIC issue so far this year was United Company Rusal’s US$2.2bln IPO. BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BOC International (China), Nomura Securities, Renaissance Capital, VTB Capital, and Sberbank are all bookrunners for the deal.

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Rusal shares fell heavily on their Hong Kong debut earlier on Monday.

The FT recently ran a big profile of Jim O’Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who coined the term BRIC a decade ago.