According to EY’s report, In the first half of 2025, 539 companies listed worldwide and raised roughly US$61.4 billion, a notable year-on-year rise in proceeds and a sign that primary markets are reopening after a choppy two years. Cross-border flotations also re-accelerated, with foreign issuers making up a large share of U.S. listings. This improvement matters for Africa: when the global window is ajar, issuers in frontier and emerging markets can catch the same updraft, provided domestic conditions line up.
The macro backdrop across Africa is quietly firmer than headlines suggest. The African Development Bank expects the continent’s growth to quicken from about 3.3% in 2024 to 3.9% in 2025, with several economies forecast to expand above 5%. Meanwhile, UNCTAD reports a powerful rebound in foreign direct investment to Africa in 2024, with inflows up 75% to a record US$97 billion, lifting the continent’s share of global FDI to 6%. Much of that surge was anchored by North Africa and underpinned by landmark transactions, but even stripping out the single largest project, inflows still rose double-digits. In capital markets, growth momentum and external capital returning at scale are the raw materials for credible IPO pipelines.
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Egypt’s Reset, Nigeria’s Repair
Policy credibility is the accelerant for listings. In March 2024, Egypt moved decisively to float its currency and secure expanded multilateral support, part of a broad package that also included major strategic investment commitments. The move eased FX shortages, stabilised expectations and put the privatisation and asset-sale programme back on the front foot opening a clearer path for state and private issuers to the market. Nigeria, for its part, has been overhauling its FX regime since mid-2023, a complex repair job aimed at unifying rates and improving price discovery. These steps have helped coax portfolio capital back to the equity market, an essential ingredient for healthy book-building.
The signs of life are not confined to one corner of the continent. Cairo has been particularly active. In June 2025, consumer-finance player valU began trading on the Egyptian Exchange after an in-kind distribution that brought fresh depth to the financials cohort and underlined the exchange’s capacity to absorb new economy names alongside more traditional issuers.
Morocco is adding new paper. In July 2025, Vicenne Industrie debuted on the Casablanca bourse, raising around MAD 300 million and signalling a pipeline that now ranges from industrials to infrastructure-adjacent assets. For global funds searching for liquid North African exposure beyond the largest incumbents, these are useful additional handles.
West Africa’s regional market is also in motion. The BRVM, linking eight economies in the West African Economic and Monetary Union has welcomed fresh listings, including the initial public offering of Benin International Investment Centre (BIIC) in 2025, reinforcing the exchange’s role as a financing hub for francophone corporates.
South Africa, despite a multi-year drought in new listings, is inching back. Retail heavyweight Pick n Pay progressed the separation and listing of its Boxer supermarkets unit, a late-2024 transaction structured to raise roughly ZAR 8 billion and broaden pure-play exposure to mass-market retail. The JSE’s renewed activity however selective matters because South Africa remains the continent’s deepest pool of institutional capital and a natural home for mid-to-large issuers.
Nigeria’s primary calendar has been thin on classic IPOs, but secondary issues, introductions and capital raises are re-engaging investors while reforms bed in. By mid-2025, foreign participation on the Nigerian Exchange had risen to about 27% of equity trading value, up from roughly 21% a year earlier, evidence that global money is edging back to Lagos as market plumbing improves.
New Venues, New Routes
The infrastructure of price discovery is expanding. Ethiopia formally launched the Ethiopian Securities Exchange and in 2025 set a start date for trading in government securities as a beachhead for corporate issuance. For one of Africa’s most populous markets, with sizeable state and private assets, that is a structural step toward listings over the medium term.
Regional connectivity is improving as well. Under the African Exchanges Linkage Project backed by the African Securities Exchanges Association, participating markets are wiring up cross-border order routing among brokers and exchanges. Phase-two expansion, bringing in additional venues such as Uganda aims to deepen liquidity, create broader investor reach for issuers and cut frictional costs of raising equity across borders.
Who Is Buying: The Quiet Return Of Foreign Money
Order books need depth, and the mix of buyers is shifting in the right direction. In Egypt’s cash equities, international and GCC money have been active on the bid at various points in 2025, helping to balance local flows as the currency and policy path stabilised. In Nigeria, the improved foreign share of turnover noted above is an early marker that international funds, long sidelined by FX bottlenecks—are re-engaging. Put simply, IPOs get done when there is both domestic sponsorship and foreign demand; the 2025 pattern shows both are re-emerging, even if unevenly.
Pricing The Offer: What’s Actually On The Shelf
The sector mix crossing African exchanges today is broader than the commodity stereotype. In North Africa, exchange-traded consumer finance, industrials and logistics are increasingly visible. In West Africa, financials and consumer names continue to dominate pipelines, with infrastructure-linked opportunities on the margin. In Southern Africa, retail and specialist resources make credible cases when cash-flow visibility is strong. The point for global investors is straightforward: Africa listings today are less a single-factor commodity bet and more a mosaic of domestic demand, digitised finance, urban infrastructure and, yes, resources where geology justifies capex. Recent global IPO cycles have rewarded issuers with predictable earnings and clean disclosure; African candidates that meet those tests have found pricing power even in cautious markets.
The Risks You Can Price, And Those You Must Manage
Foreign-exchange convertibility and availability remain the first question in any Africa roadshow. Egypt’s float eased backlog risk; Nigeria’s FX unification is work-in-progress but directionally supportive. Liquidity is the second constraint, especially outside the JSE, EGX, NGX and Casablanca; that is precisely why regional linkages and better market-making matter. Governance and disclosures are the third pillar. Here, the trend is positive as regulators lean into global standards on financial reporting and sustainability, and exchanges demand richer continuous disclosure. None of these risks is new. What is new in 2024–2025 is that policy traction is visible, and the investor base is broadening again.
Why Now, From A Global Seat
Two cyclical currents are meeting a structural tide. Cyclically, the world’s IPO window is no longer shut, with proceeds and deal counts trending up in 2025 and cross-border issuance back in favour. Structurally, Africa’s FDI is recovering, reform momentum is strongest where it matters most for listings, and the region’s capital-market “pipes” are being laid or widened. For global investors who missed the early-2010s Africa trade, the new story is more grounded: better currency regimes, cleaner governance and deals sized for institutional portfolios.
The watchlist into 2026
Three markers will determine whether the “boom” moniker holds. First, the follow-through on reform, Egypt’s continued FX flexibility and privatisation cadence, Nigeria’s completion of FX market repairs and financial-sector strengthening. Second, the breadth of the buyer base foreign participation on the NGX and EGX holding or rising, plus deeper domestic pools via pensions and life-insurance allocations. Third, the continuation of global risk appetite, if 2025’s gradual improvement in IPO volumes and cross-border prints extends, African issuers will find not only a window but a welcome.
Bottom line
Africa’s equity story is not a slogan; it is a set of investable facts. A global IPO market that is functioning again, a continent-wide growth outlook that is mending, a record rebound in FDI, and reforms that are improving currency and market mechanics, all of these are now visible in the data. Add to that a widening roster of deals from Cairo and Casablanca to Abidjan and Johannesburg, and you have the makings of a durable primary-market cycle. For global allocators, the decision has shifted from “if” to “how” how to calibrate exposure across markets, how to price FX and liquidity risk, and how to back issuers that treat disclosure not as a compliance burden but as a competitive advantage. That is why the street is watching Africa’s order books closely again.
