Canadian Junior Public Markets Health Check: Surprising Resilience Thus Far, Some Concerns Looking Forward

Authors

  • L. Daniel Wilson

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55016/ojs/sppp.v18i1.80403

Abstract

It is widely recognized that Canada, along with other developed Western economies, has a significant public capital markets problem. Increasingly fewer operating companies are choosing to go public, limiting access to the most attractive growth-stage opportunities for retail investors. Thus far, analysis of the public company decline phenomenon in Canada has focused almost exclusively on the Canadian senior capital markets. Reasons for the lack of focus on the Canadian junior markets include: i) fragmented nature and inconsistent data accessibility, requiring extraction and collation of data from a variety of different underlying sources; and ii) the fact that Canadian junior capital markets are unique, primarily dealing with companies of a smaller size and earlier stage of maturity than one would encounter in other international public markets. Yet, the Canadian junior capital markets fill a critical role in the Canadian economy, in particular because of the lower level of access to institutional private capital for startup and growth-stage businesses in Canada compared to our American neighbours.

This paper conducts a health check on the Canadian junior public markets. Surprisingly, the evidence demonstrates that the junior markets have proved resilient in the face of headwinds and the total number of listed operating companies on the junior stock exchanges in Canada has not followed the declining trendline of the senior markets. The makeup of issuers listed on Canadian junior public markets has evolved materially over the past 15 years; as the market has fragmented, new competitors have taken market share from the incumbent TSX Venture Exchange.

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Published

2025-01-24

Issue

Section

Research Papers