European secondary share offerings hit record high - data

LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) - Levels of European secondary share sales have soared to $53.3 billion in 2014, the strongest year-to-date since records began in 1980, weekly Thomson Reuters (Frankfurt: TOC.F - news) data showed on Friday.

Follow-on activity, when a listed company sells more shares, rose 52 percent against the same period last year, helped by the $2.1 billion offering from Spanish utility company Iberdrola (TLO: IBE-U.TI - news) and RSA Insurance Group's $1.3 billion sale.

Other European markets also showed strong activity, with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) up 85 percent to $235.1 billion in the year so far. The $40.1 billion merger between cement producers Holcim (Other OTC: HCMLF - news) and Lafarge (Munich: CIL.MU - news) is the biggest M&A deal since Glencore's Xstrata takeover in 2012.

Global initial public offerings (IPOs) continued a strong run with the best year to date since 2000, more than doubling on last year to $56.9 billion, the data showed.

Morgan Stanley (Berlin: DWD.BE - news) led the banking league tables for global M&A, while Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) was top for global equity and equity-related deals.

(For more detail on the week's investment banking data please click on: http://share.thomsonreuters.com/PR/IB/IB_Scorecard/Weekly_Scorecard_041014.pdf)

(Reporting by Freya Berry; editing by Andrew Roche)