5 top Wall Street bankers explain why the IPO market has dried up — and when things will pick up again

Times are tough in the market for initial public offerings.

2016 has seen the fewest IPO deals, and lowest deal value, since the gloomy post-financial-crisis days of 2009.

There have been just nine IPOs this year in the US, raising a total of $1.2 billion, according to Dealogic. That’s down from 33 deals worth $5.5 billion in the same period last year and 59 deals worth $10.1 billion in the same period in 2014.

Notably, none of this year’s offerings have been in the tech space.

So what’s going on?

Business Insider talked to a handful of bankers at some of the top-ranked houses for equity capital markets. They attributed the slowdown mainly to unusually volatile markets that started in late 2015, which have the typical IPO investors — hedge funds and mutual funds — spooked and unwilling to take a risk on an untested stock.

Companies might be able to pull off a sale right now, but only by offering the new shares at a steeper than usual discount to the new investors. So those that can afford to wait are choosing to do so until demand returns.

That said, most of the bankers we talked to expect activity, especially in the tech and consumer sectors, to pick up a bit in the spring — and even more into the second half of the year — as markets continue to stabilize.

Here’s what they had to say: