A volatile year for initial public offerings has paved the way for a potentially meager 2013, with just a few dozen companies filing to go public within the last six months, none of which are considerable in size.
During the second half of 2012, at least 36 companies filed initial prospectuses with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to data compiled by Dealogic, putting the new year on track to be far less active than its predecessor for IPOs.
This past year, 139 companies went public, according to the money manager Renaissance Capital, which tracks IPOs, and even that number was a far drop from the prior two years, during which more than 200 filers tapped the public markets for the first time. (Read More: Facebook Pushes US to Top of IPO Charts.)