Even with a slowdown in China — as well as a weakening real estate market and plunging stock prices — the country’s IPO market continues to be healthy. In fact, for 2011, it was the top place for public offerings.

According to The Globe and Mail, the top exchanges in China — which include Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong — saw $73 billion in capital raised. This was nearly twice the amount of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq combined.

A key to China’s IPO strength has been the participation of foreign companies. Some of recent listings include Italian fashion label Prada, Swiss commodities trader Glencore and American luggage maker Samsonite. Read 

Cantor Fitzgerald has been at the cutting edge of innovation in the financial industry, especially with electronic bond trading. The company owns more than 250 U.S. and foreign patents on real-time, secure technology systems.

However, the company’s technology turned out to be useful in other applications — specifically, online gambling. And back in 2006, Cantor built a new company — Cantor Entertainment Technology — to pursue this goal, and it recently filed to go public.

CET provides the technology infrastructure for race and sports book operations in Nevada, covering horse races, as well as football, basketball, baseball and hockey games. The advanced system even allows for “in-running gaming” — that is, a patron can place bets while the event is happening. A pretty innovative way to create even more gambling excitement — and to boost revenues. Read 

With the extreme volatility in the markets during the summer — primarily because of the debt problems in the U.S. and Europe — the IPO market ground to a halt. Large companies, like Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) and Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), had to postpone their public offerings.

But by November, things started to get much better. According to a report from PwC’s Transaction Services, U.S. IPOs raised more than $6.4 billion. Then again, there were a variety of large deals: Company Amount Raised Zynga $1 billion Michael Kors Holdings $944 million Delphi Automotive $529 million Groupon $700 million

As for the number of pricings, they came to: Read 

Some of the greatest business ideas get their inspiration at restaurants. Just look at Jimmy Ray. In 1991, he sketched on a napkin the concept for a telephone system to be used on aircraft. He felt so strongly about the idea that he eventually started Aircell, which became the only authorized company to use cellular frequencies according to FCC and FAA regulations.

Since then, Aircell has gone through lots of changes — not the least of which is its name, which now is Gogo — and it has become the world’s largest provider of in-flight Internet connectivity.

To capitalize on its success, the company is preparing for an IPO. The underwriters include Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and UBS (NYSE:UBS), and the proposed ticker symbol is “GOGO.” Read 

2011 has been a bountiful year for social media IPOs. Some of the deals we saw included Pandora (NYSE:P), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), Angie’s List (NASDAQ:ANGI) and Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). But what hot offerings might we see in 2012?

The most obvious one, of course, is Facebook. According to a November piece in The Wall Street Journal, it looks like the IPO will hit the markets in next year’s second quarter. Facebook is expected to raise an enormous $10 billion at a valuation of more than $100 billion.

But what are some of the other deals we might see? It’s mostly speculation, but here’s a look at many worthy candidates: Read 

While we’ve seen many great tech companies emerge over the years, like Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) – it looks like Facebook wants to be even bigger.  According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, social network giant’s vision is to become a blue-chip company – one that’s built to last.

Facebook already seems as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) or Proctor & Gamble (NYSE:PG).  And it’s not uncommon for a relatively young company to become a member of that most exalted list of companies:  the Dow Jones Industrials.  Examples include Home Depot (NYSE:HD), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) and Intel (Nasdaq:INTC).

Of course, a key part of Facebook’s strategy is to become a public company, which is expected to happen in 2012.  The expectation is that the company will raise $10 billion, which would translate into a valuation of $100 billion. Read