(Bloomberg) — Fees from underwriting U.S. IPOs, stock sales and convertible bonds have already surpassed last year’s, even as tariff traps and the government shutdown limited deal opportunities. With a few weeks left in 2025, fees from equity and convertible bond sales by U.S.-listed companies totaled $8.78 billion for the year to Dec. 2, up from $8.06 billion in all of 2024, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group Plc. A record year for convertible bond issuance, as well as an IPO market, aided by a surge in blank-check firm listings, supported the recovery in fees. The round-trip tariff and the federal government shutdown that halted some of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s functions likely meant that about a quarter of this year was lost to dealmakers, said Mangesh Ghogre, founder of One Capita Advisors in New York and a former head of equity capital markets at Nomura Holdings Units Inc. “With fewer windows, the car ran on three tires this year, so to speak,” Ghogre said. The trifecta of relatively high interest rates, rising stock prices and increased single-stock volatility have made convertible bonds particularly attractive this year to companies seeking the lowest-cost capital, making them the fastest-growing product within ECM with $2.38 billion in fees, up 46% from 2024. from artificial intelligence data center operator Nebius Group NV and crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc. Helped by a decent stretch from June to September when markets were wide open for business, as well as a sizeable pickup in SPAC listings, banks still generated $2.45 billion in fees this year from US-traded IPOs. That’s up nearly 13% from last year, according to the LSEG data, led by listings for gas exporter Venture Global Inc., payments firm Klarna Group Plc and AI infrastructure company CoreWeave Inc. As in most years, the biggest source of fees for the banks’ ECM units was sales of shares in already listed companies. It generated $3.94 billion in fees, 7% behind last year’s delivery, as the deals made it harder to time offers with confidence. February’s $13.1 billion sale by Toronto-Dominion Bank of its stake in Charles Schwab Corp. holds the mantle of this year’s biggest stock sale, well ahead of insurance broker Brown & Brown Inc. ’s $4.4 billion offering in June. The largest sectors in terms of ECM fees across all products this year were financials – a category that includes vehicles such as SPAC IPOs – and technology. Health care, last year’s busiest sector, has been weighed down by policy uncertainty in Washington. While this year’s fees are modestly higher than 2024’s, they remain well below the $20.4 billion rolled in during the easy money conditions of 2021 and the 10-year average of $9.41 billion, LSEG’s data show. With the government shutdown slowing some activity, bankers are optimistic that next year will be bigger again in terms of fees and share sales volume. “The highway could turn into a runway in 2026 given expected rate cuts and the assumption that the full year will be available,” Ghogre said. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com ©2025 Bloomberg LP