IPO Watch: ASX listings highest in three years as April delivers gold, income and a Nevada play

About this update from Solaris Australian Equity Income Plus Ltd.

2026 has delivered a small handful of listings each month, and April was no exception, with the L1 Gold Fund, Solaris Australian Equity Income Plus and Bison Resources all making their market debut.Twelve companies have listed so far this year, outpacing the same period in 2025 (5), 2024 (8) and 2023 (10), but still well short of the 39 recorded in 2022.April listings at a glanceL1 Gold Fund (LGF): An L1 Capital-managed LIC offering exposure to an actively managed long/short portfolio of gold and precious metals equities, largely replicating L1's existing wholesale gold fund. The $950 million raise ranked among the largest LIC listings of 2026, with founders Mark Landau and Raphael Lamm committing $140 million of their own capital.Solaris Australian Equity Income Plus (SET): A LIC from Pinnacle affiliate Solaris Investment Management, designed to deliver monthly fully franked dividends and long-term capital growth from a portfolio of ASX-listed equities.Bison Resources (BSR): A junior gold and silver explorer with four projects in northeast Nevada's Carlin Trend, one of the world's most prolific gold belts. The company raised $5.5 million in an oversubscribed IPO to fund geophysics, sampling and maiden drilling across the portfolio.IPOs so far this yearIPOs this year have averaged a 27.3% return on debut and traded positive 83% of the time. New listings have struggled to hold onto those initial gains, with the average IPO now up just 4.3% from the offer price and only half trading above the offer price.Strip out Bison Resources and the debut average falls to 9.3% and to-date returns turn negative, to -4.3%.Source: Market Index | To-date returns to 30 April 2026A closer look: Bison ResourcesBison lodged its prospectus on 20 February and made its ASX debut on 16 April. During this time, gold prices fell ~6% from US$5,108 to US$4,790 – a rather downbeat backdrop for an explorer. Though a lean market cap of just $13.2 million offers high leverage to exploration newsflow, while the company also flagged the IPO as "heavily oversubscribed", which likely added to early demand.As for the projects:Four development projects (Ruby Lake, Cherry Springs, Bald Peaks, Medicine Range) consist of 312 unpatented mining claims in Nevada, USAProjects located ~7km from Sun Silver's 539Moz AgEq Maverick Springs deposit, in the same host rocks and structural corridorNevada produ...

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