Canadian markets lose about $125 billion to take-privates as AGT and Apotex ready IPOs
Canada’s IPO market is lining up its biggest deals since 2021 at the same time as billions of dollars in smaller companies disappear from the public markets.
According to Bloomberg, Canadian generic drug manufacturer Apotex Inc. is considering an initial public offering in Toronto in the first half of the year that could raise US$750m to US$1bn, which would make it the country’s largest debut since Definity Financial Corp. raised about $1.6bn in November 2021.
RBC Capital Markets, Jefferies Financial Group and TD Securities are advising on the potential transaction with timing and size still subject to change.
Bloomberg says Apotex is one of several names testing a long‑dormant IPO market.
Saskatchewan‑based AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. has said it plans to return to Canada’s public markets and is seeking to raise up to $460m.
For the first time since 2021, multiple firms are moving toward IPOs on the Toronto Stock Exchange after a stretch in which often only one or two companies went public per year.
The shift follows a severe drop‑off in issuance.
The number of IPOs on the TSX fell from a record 42 in 2021 to just one in 2023, the lowest level in two decades.
Investment bankers told Bloomberg they link the slump to post‑2021 deals that struggled in the aftermarket, higher interest rates, and the heavy weighting of Canadian issuers in sectors such as energy and materials while investors were seeking technology exposure.
Some underwriters now see conditions improving.
“I think we should see a more regular cadence than what we saw, certainly, last year,” said Joe Kostandoff, managing director and co‑head of equity solutions and equity capital markets at CIBC Capital Markets, in comments reported by Bloomberg.
He pointed to healthy valuations, investor demand, and well‑subscribed equity deals as evidence that the market “may be turning a corner.”
As one example, Brookfield‑backed Rockpoint Gas Storage Inc. completed its first secondary offering earlier this month at a 30 percent premium to its IPO price after going public in 2025.
A broader slate of potential listings.
Vale Base Metals has said it is working to be ready for an IPO.
Onex Corp.‑backed WestJet Airlines Ltd. is expected to go public within a couple of years.
Toronto‑based Barrick Mining Corp. is proceeding with an IPO of its North American gold mining assets, although it has not yet picked a listing venue.
“It does feel like we’ve got a much more robust pipeline of IPOs now than we’ve had in the last few years,” said Jackie Nixon, head of equity capital markets Canada at RBC Capital Markets, as reported by Bloomberg.
She added that recent weakness in the tech sector, where concerns about new AI tools weigh on software and related areas, is unlikely to derail a potential IPO recovery.
The operator of Canada’s main exchanges describes a similar backdrop.
Reuters reports that TMX Group Ltd. chief executive John McKenzie sees a strong IPO pipeline with about 1,600 companies at various stages of preparing to list, even after only two new companies joined the TSX last year.
He said up to half of those 1,600 companies are from outside Canada, many of them drawn to TMX’s venture ecosystem for early‑stage capital.
McKenzie highlighted Canada’s strength in mining and firm commodity prices as key supports for investor interest.
He told Reuters that TMX has been “engaged in the Middle East” as that region transitions toward more of a mining economy and noted resources “on the ground in multiple jurisdictions, like South America, like Australia, good resource economies.”
He also said, as per Reuters, that companies are looking beyond traditional IPOs to reverse takeovers, direct listings, TSXV‑to‑TSX graduations and the TSX Venture Exchange’s capital pool company program to access the public market.
At the same time, market participants are warning about what is happening at the smaller end of the spectrum.
BNN Bloomberg reports that Canadian IPO activity continues to thin as more companies leave major stock exchanges, and that delistings and take‑private deals now outpace new IPOs.
Since 2023, “there have been about $125 billion worth of companies that have left the Toronto Stock Exchange and been taken private,” said Dan Nowlan, vice chair at National Bank Capital Markets, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg.
He said some firms merged with other companies, some were bought by private equity and some by strategics, and “there hasn’t been the IPO pipeline to replace those.”
Nowlan told BNN Bloomberg that smaller Canadian companies that cannot get “capital at the right valuations” in public markets may look elsewhere, including sales to foreign buyers, with potential consequences for jobs and head offices.
He said that about $125bn of value has been taken private over the past two and a half years, including 54 companies in 2025 and another forty‑something in 2024.
Nowlan partly blamed tax policy for the pressure on small caps, saying Canada has “punished risk‑taking” with a debilitating tax regime. He cited a series of tax increases since the financial crisis and a recent, then‑reversed capital gains hike that still spooked investors.
He also described a structural shift in ownership.
According to his comments on BNN Bloomberg, the institutional shareholder base of companies with less than a $1.5bn market cap is “significantly smaller today, in 2025, than it was in 2020,” with the trend becoming more acute since the second half of 2021.
While he noted that larger‑cap names have performed well and that “the TSX is up 25 percent this year,” he identified the “smaller‑cap part of the market” as the main area of weakness, even as he sees more (and larger) companies considering going public into 2026.
