What will companies do with IPO money? Repay loans.

What the chart shows

Of the 59 big-company IPOs whose applications closed from 27 July to 5 October 2026, 37 said in their offer documents that some of the new money would go to repaying loans. It is the most common use, and it stays on top without the 5 biggest IPOs (32 of 54).

3 more big IPOs are not on the list: old owners sold every share, so the company got no new money. Small-company (SME) IPOs over the same weeks: of the 60 whose offer documents we read, 43 list building plants or buying machines, 36 day-to-day running money and 30 repaying loans.

What this is: when a company sells new shares in an IPO, its offer document sets out what it plans to do with that money. We counted how many offer documents list each use. What it is not: a record of what was actually spent later, and not a verdict on any IPO. Repaying loans is not good or bad by itself.

How it is measured

When a company sells new shares in an IPO, its offer document sets out what it plans to spend that money on (the "objects of the issue"). We read that list for every big-company (main-board) IPO whose applications closed from 27 July to 5 October 2026, and counted how many list each use. One IPO can list several uses, so the counts add up to more than 59.

How each line is sorted: "repay loans" = repaying or paying early any borrowing, loan or debt (including loans taken for day-to-day running); "build plants, buy machines" = spending on things a business keeps for years: plants, factories, machines, equipment, computers, new shops and their fittings; "day-to-day running money" = working capital, the money a business needs to buy stock and pay bills; "buy other companies" = buying companies or a bigger stake in one, named or not yet named (buying land or property projects is not counted here); "other plans" = everything else the lines name: marketing (4), property projects (3), rent (3), technology (2), its own funds (1), bank guarantees (1), money to lend (1), research (1), companies it owns (1). Money a company puts into a company it owns is counted under what that money is for: if it pays back that company's loans, it counts as repaying loans. Not counted: "general corporate purposes" (money the company decides how to use later) and the costs of the IPO itself, because not every offer document gives them a line of their own.

Left out: 3 IPOs where existing owners sold every share, so the company got no new money and had no list, and 1 whose offer document we have not read for this. Checked without the 5 biggest IPOs: repaying loans is still the most common use, 32 of 54. This is what offer documents say the money is for, before the IPO. It is not a record of how the money was spent later, and no use is good or bad by itself.

How this chart has read

The finding in one sentence, on each day its numbers changed.

1. 6 Oct 2026Of the 59 big-company IPOs whose applications closed from 27 July to 5 October 2026, 37 said in their offer documents that some of the new money would go to repaying loans. It is the most common use, and it stays on top without the 5 biggest IPOs (32 of 54).
2. 4 Oct 2026Of the 57 big-company IPOs whose applications closed from 27 July to 30 September 2026, 36 said in their offer documents that some of the new money would go to repaying loans. It is the most common use, and it stays on top without the 5 biggest IPOs (31 of 52).

Using this chart