Wintershall-Dea no guide to future IPO performance

Post-merger momentum contrasts with wider industry cynicism over energy IPOs

Trade tensions, warnings of an impending global slowdown and disruptive political events such as Brexit have all contributed towards gloomier European energy initial public offering (IPO) sentiment over the past two years. But a planned post-merger public bow for the combination of Germany's Wintershall and Dea suggests at least some players see brighter skies ahead. In a mid-March annual Wintershall media presentation in Kassel, the firm's headquarters for 125 years, company officials announced that it and Dea had secured a $6.8bn credit line from five unnamed US banks to push through their merger by the end of June. This paves the way for planned IPO in early 2020. That would be an acceler