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In the 1984 pilot episode of Miami Vice, Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs tear through neon-lit Miami in a Ferrari while Phil Collins sings “I can feel it coming in the air tonight.” There’s little dialogue in a tense four-minute scene, punctuated by the song’s terrific transitory drum solo. Crockett stops off at a phone booth to ask his estranged wife, “It was real, wasn’t it?”, while Tubbs loads a shotgun for a showdown with a drug trafficker. The air is thick with suspense and anticipation. Jump to today, and equity capital markets bankers can feel it coming in the air, but they’re not sure what “it” is. Banks have bulging pipelines of exciting IPOs, even after discounting the hype and hyperbole. But those same bankers know that after two years of deal doldrums, the higher-ups’ patience is wearing thin. The expected flow of IPOs last autumn dried up after a soggy after-market performance. The IPO boom of 2020-21 was real, wasn’t it? Or will 2024 be a reckoning? READ MORE