Every time you look around these days, it seems as if another big company is heading to the public markets.

In the US, half a dozen technology groups — including Snowflake, Unity and Asana — unveiled prospectuses last week. And Airbnb is coming down the track behind them: the accommodation group last month said it had made a confidential filing for an initial public offering. The Hut Group, which is in retail and tech, has revealed plans for the UK’s largest listing in years and Chinese fintech Ant Group is lining up for a blockbuster flotation that could raise a record $30bn.

The flurry of activity has grabbed attention, particularly because new listings dried up during the Covid-19 lockdowns and resulting market turmoil. This year to date, only 16 new listings globally have raised more than $1bn, according to Refinitiv data, although smaller IPOs helped push the total for flotations to $96.6bn by the end of August, up 10 per cent year on year.