Floats sail away to excellent conditions GOOD news on recent floats: more than 80 per cent of the listings of established businesses over the past 12 months have generated a positive return. That's a near-bonanza in historic terms, plus recent listings have seen a 100 per cent success rate. That will provide a platform for the presently fragile IPO market to strengthen. Scheduled floats in the coming months include a $16.5 million offering by tourism and transport provider SeaLink Travel Group, as well as a $439m offering by international payments group OzForex. While the recent success of Fertoz provides some solace, it remains a painful reality that life is still very challenging for speculative ventures. While industrials have done nicely, over the past 12 months a full 75 per cent of speculative offerings are trading below par. Australia's superannuation system houses the world's fourth-largest savings pool. Valued at $1.5 trillion, it represents 5 per cent of capital within the world's 10 largest pension systems. While more than half is allocated towards equity investments, support for newer ventures appears underrepresented. The Australian Securities Exchange captures less than 1 per cent of capital raised from worldwide initial public offerings. Having exceeded a 4 per cent market share or $5 billion a year before the financial crisis, there has been a marked decline in local IPOs over the past five years, with deal value trending towards $1bn per annum. Activity during the September quarter was mixed. Announced offerings on the ASX trended near 12-year lows and the quantity of new listings declined by 50 per cent. However, as large, established companies dominated activity, capital raised was well above the recent trend at $1.1bn. After raising $840m, New Zealand-based downstream energy company, Z Energy, was the largest entrant, followed by insurance broker Steadfast Group with its $334m offering. Supported by an 11 per cent gain in the ASX 200 and 15 per cent gain in the Small Ordinaries share indices, all debutantes during the September quarter are presently trading above par. The strongest performing IPO was Canada-focused phosphate explorer Fertoz, which has surged 165 per cent since its $4m listing. The most underwhelming debutant has been Birch and Prestige Investment Group, which has squeaked a 2 per cent gain after raising $4m. Tim Morris is an analyst at wise-owl.com.