Initial public offerings aren't dead, they're just in hiding, said David Menlow, president of IPOFinancial.com.

Italian luxury brands Prada and Ferragamo look likely to wait for better market conditions to list their shares, probably after the summer, financial sources said, but competing timing could hurt their plans.

Signs that the credit crunch is affecting the real economy in Europe continued to appear in the first quarter of 2008, as the real-estate and retail sectors and mergers and acquisitions all struggled with tighter lending criteria, inflation and dwindling investment.