TheCorporateCounsel.net

Over on The Business Law Prof Blog, Prof. Ben Edwards recently posted his analysis of midyear IPO trends. Here are some of his findings:

– SPACs are back in a big way.  SPACs accounted for 112 of the 200 IPOs completed during the first half of 2026, raising $20.9 billion. While SPACs outpaced operating companies in the number of deals, the 88 operating company IPOs completed during the first half raised a total of $129 billion. Of course, that number includes SpaceX’s gargantuan $85 billion IPO, which distorts the stats quite a bit.

– Forget Delaware, Nevada and Texas – if you include SPACs, the Cayman Islands is the leading jurisdiction of incorporation for this year’s IPOs, with 109 issuers (54%) incorporated there. Delaware followed with 57 issuers (28%), while Nevada had six (3%) and Texas had four (2%).

– Excluding SPACs, Delaware remains the overwhelming favorite for the jurisdiction of incorporation of this year’s IPO issuers, with 67% of those issuers choosing to incorporate there.  Nevada was the choice of 7% of issuers, and Texas was chosen by 5% of them.

– In terms of the proceeds raised, Texas outpaced everyone, thanks to Elon. IPO issuers incorporated in Texas raised $86.1 billion, while Delaware issuers raised $28.9 billion and Nevada issuers raised $5 billion.

Ben also includes a bunch of different league table measures for issuer’s and underwriters’ counsel and lead underwriters for this year’s IPOs, as well as some interesting data on where controlled companies that engaged in IPOs this year opted to incorporate (spoiler alert: Delaware still leads the pack, but not by as much).

– John Jenkins