Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC are set to be the big winners in the European equity capital and initial public offering markets at the halfway stage of 2015, as ECM bankers reflect on a sector that has been "neither too hot nor too cold".

The changeable backdrop for ECM bankers this year is illustrated by the fact that IPO volumes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which at the end of the first quarter had been running at a pace only bettered in 2000, ended the second quarter with volumes for the six-month period as a whole down 36% from last year, according to preliminary figures from data provider Dealogic.