Japanese ECM issuance fell 177% in 2007 to just $25.5 billion and 266 deals. Japanese companies raised just $6 billion in IPOs, a decrease of 68% from 2006 when they raised $18.9 billion.
IT spending growth Consultancy Celent estimates that global information technology spending by financial services institutions reached $342.1 billion in 2007, an increase of just 5.9% over 2006, substantially less than the 8.7% growth achieved in 2006. The next couple of years, though, might be challenging – global spending on IT products and services is expected to grow to $386.7 billion by 2009, a compound annual growth rate of 6.3% from 2007 to 2009.