KARACHI: Private companies preferred to stay out of the equities market in 2016 as the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) witnessed just three initial public of ferings (IPOs)in the year that is about to end.

The three new listings mobilised Rs4.2 billion in total.

The IPOs held in 2016 were notably smaller than the six IPOs conducted in 2015 that mobilised Rs116bn.

Although a major sum of Rs102.3bn came from the secondary offering of Habib Bank last year, the balance was considerably higher than the 2016 amount.

The low interest from sponsors seems surprising in an overwhelming bull market in 2016 as the benchmark KSE100 index has posted a return of 43 per cent year-to-date.

The three IPOs in 2016 were Hi-Tech Lubricants worth Rs1.8bn, Loads Limited Rs1.7m and TPL Properties Rs0.7bn.

`We expect some improvement in IPOs in 2017 as there are already some companies vying for listing. However, with no big offerings from the government, except perhaps State Life Insurance, the overall share supply will remain low,` analysts at Topline Securities said.

They said about five to seven public offerings will take place in 2017 in food/dairy, banking, information technology, media and pharmaceutical sectors.