Without a single initial public offering on Canada’s senior equity exchange in the last six months, 2008 was the worst year for IPOs in the history of the annual survey of Canada’s equity markets by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the firm’s 2008 summary has revealed.

Just 57 new issues struggled to reach Canada’s equity markets in 2008, with a mere 10 registered on the TSX in the year ended Dec. 31, 2008. There were no new IPOs on the TSX in the final six months of the year. By comparison, there were 100 IPOs on all of Canada’s exchanges in 2007, with 36 new issues on the TSX.

The value of all issues on Canadian markets in 2008 was $682 million, down 80% from the $3.4 billion in 2007, the survey showed. The value of all issues on the TSX in 2008 was $547 million, off from $3 billion in 2007.

A single new issue made it to the TSX Venture in the final quarter of 2008 to bring the full-year total to 38 IPOs for the year, with a value of $128 million, down significantly from the 54 new issues worth $382 million in the year prior.

The PwC IPO survey has followed Canadian equity markets since 1998.

“It’s hard to find much to be optimistic about in this data but it is small comfort to know that it isn’t just the Canadian IPO market, or even Canadian equity markets that are struggling,” says Ross Sinclair, national leader for PwC’s IPO and income trust services. “It appears similar in other major markets. I’m afraid we’re in uncharted territory, and it’s hard to predict when our IPO market will come back and what a new normal level of activity will be.”

Sinclair says that the first half of 2009 shows little promise of a recovery in the market for new equity issues. Economic recession, equity market volatility, constricted credit and sagging commodity prices all conspire against a recovery in the short term. “We know that there will be pent-up demand for capital and new equity issues when we gain some stability,” he says. “We just can’t say when that will be.”

The largest corporate IPO in 2008 was the $200 million issue by Sprott Inc. in the first half of the year. The second largest was Seacliff Construction Corp.’s $100 million placement, also in the first half. Third was a $60 million issue from Orbit Garant Drilling Inc. The top three issues accounted for more than half of the total value of all issues in 2008.