Initial public offerings have dominated financial markets on both sides of the border in 2026, with Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. completing the largest IPO in history and drugmaker Apotex Health Corp. achieving the biggest IPO in Canada since 2021. The gap between the two deals is enormous—SpaceX raised US$85.7 billion in June while Apotex raised $1.5 billion—but bankers and lawyers advising Canadian dealmakers are encouraged to see IPOs returning to Canada after a prolonged slowdown between 2022 and 2024.
IPO Activity Spurs Optimism
“The conversation has been completely dominated by the large IPOs in the United States,” said Desmond Lee, a capital markets lawyer at Toronto’s Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much coverage of a single IPO as I have for the SpaceX IPO. There is hope that some of that enthusiasm will rub off on the Canadian market.”
Overall, Canada’s financial sector raised about $376 billion through 586 deals in the first six months of 2026, up 21.5% from the $309.3 billion raised in the first half of 2025, according to Financial Post Data. This strong start puts the sector on track to surpass the $597 billion recorded in 2025, the highest annual total since 2010.
Canadian Banks Lead Capital Raising
Canada’s biggest banks played a key role in facilitating these investments. In the first half of 2026, RBC Capital Markets participated in the most deals and raised the largest amount of capital—$49 billion, or 13% of all capital raised in Canada. TD Securities Inc. was second with a market share of 9.5%, raising about $35.8 billion, followed by BMO Capital Markets with $35.1 billion. National Bank Financial, CIBC World Markets Inc., and Scotia Capital Inc. raised $34 billion, $32.8 billion, and $30.7 billion, respectively, giving them market shares of 9%, 8.7%, and 8.2%.
Apotex IPO Dominates Canadian Issuance
Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, and Bank of Montreal were among the Big Six banks that worked on the Apotex offering, which priced at $24 per share. That deal accounted for 59% of the $2.53 billion raised through IPOs in Canada in the first half of 2026. Other key IPOs include agri-food player AGT Food and Ingredients Inc., which raised about $449.5 million, and miner Lumina Metals Corp., which raised $421.2 million. Together, these three companies accounted for more than 90% of IPO money raised so far this year.
Recovery Yet to Broaden
The total amount raised in the first six months already exceeds the $1.47 billion raised through 11 deals in all of 2025 and the $1.76 billion raised in total between 2022 and 2024. However, the outsized impact of the Apotex deal suggests the recovery in Canada’s IPO market has yet to broaden across a larger number of issuers. “It’s a very different feel in Canada (compared to the U.S.),” Lee said. “We don’t have the companies that have announced their intentions to do an IPO in the AI space.”
