ECM: Best and worst of times

By one measure, this year is turning out nicely for Wall Street’s equity underwriters. Their most profitable business – handling initial public offerings of stock – has grown by a third from the same period a year ago, according to Dealogic. Moreover bankers say their pipelines of pending deals are full of nifty new companies. But don’t be mistaken – these are actually rough times for the underwriting industry. And they may get a lot tougher. The boom in IPO issuance masks a larger decline acro...