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German medical technology company Brainlab has postponed its planned stock market listing just two days before its scheduled debut, marking the latest setback for Europe’s struggling IPO market.

Bookrunners had already signalled on Monday that the company’s initial public offering would price at the bottom of the indicated €80 to €100 range, which would have valued it at €1.7bn.

But following the end of the bookbuilding process on Tuesday, the company said that its shareholders, including founder Stefan Vilsmeier and private equity backer EMH, had decided to postpone the listing. “An IPO at a later time remains under consideration,” the statement said.

The decision comes just a week after German car parts retailer Autodoc postponed its flotation, with bankers citing weak investor demand and geopolitical uncertainty. This year, drugmaker Stada also postponed its IPO plans in Frankfurt amid market volatility.

The decisions are a blow to Europe’s market for new listings, which has been buffeted by volatility sparked by Donald Trump’s trade war, derailing hopes for a further recovery after last year featured large IPOs such as EQT’s float of dermatology giant Galderma.

“2024 was the reopening of the IPO market globally and particularly in Europe,” said Gareth McCartney, global co-head of equity capital markets at UBS. “The expectations and hopes were clearly that ’25 was going to be the year.”
However, he added that “the reality is then we’ve ended up with a key part of the IPO window being postponed given the volatility around tariffs . . . what that caused is a number of the biggest highest-quality IPOs got bumped to the post-summer window.”

The US market for listings has fared better, with high-profile successes such as stablecoin operator Circle Internet. Circle’s shares climbed 168 per cent at its debut in New York last month.

Bankers point at structural issues in Europe such as more fragmented capital markets with poorer liquidity that results in lower valuations.

Europe “has been and will be a tougher place to go public”, said one senior banker at a European bank. “The US IPO market is far more open than any other market.”

Bankers had hoped Brainlab’s focus on artificial intelligence and surgical robotics — in an expanding healthcare sector — would help the deal stand out in an otherwise risk-averse environment. The company planned to raise €160mn in capital to enter new clinical areas next to its focus on imaging and navigation software for surgeons, improve its sales function and reduce debt, while current shareholders would have sold around €260mn worth of their own shares.

While the order book was said to be multiple times oversubscribed, a person familiar with the decision said the company’s shareholders were dissatisfied with the composition of investors. “The quality in the book appeared not very strong for a market debut,” the person said.

So far this year there have been just two IPOs on Frankfurt’s stock market: €500mn electronics company Pfisterer and €1.2bn software company Innoscripta.

Blackstone this year appointed Morgan Stanley and Citi to IPO Spanish group Hotel Investment Partners, which has 70 mostly beachfront hotels across the continent, at an estimated €6.5bn valuation.

But in recent weeks, the private equity group has become more nervous about “current market dynamics” and will not float the business in Madrid this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The uncertainty caused by the 12 day-long war between Israel and Iran, in addition to general market volatility, meant the environment had “to be more benign than now”, one person said. A flotation might still happen in the first half of next year, they said.

Another Blackstone-owned company, Cirsa, is pushing ahead with its planned IPO, according to people familiar with the matter. The Spanish casino operator has an estimated valuation of €2.5bn and is expected to float next week, the people said. Blackstone declined to comment.