REFILE-DEALTALK-Investors snub ENEA IPO, drought persists

(Corrects spelling of zloty in first paragraph, no other changes to text)

By Daisy Ku

LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - With Poland forced to trim the IPO of its state-owned power firm ENEA by one third to less than 2 billion zlotys ($724 million), bankers see little hope Europe's IPO market will open before April 2009.

It has been 15 weeks since Europe had its last major listing -- special purpose firm Germany 1 Acquisition's $400 million initial public offering on the Euronext in July, underwritten by Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE).

"The IPO market will remain shut for the rest of the year. The real question is -- can they (companies) launch a deal in April or May?" said Craig Coben, managing director of EMEA equity capital markets at Merrill Lynch (MER.N).

ENEA pressed ahead with its Warsaw listing, arranged by Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), and on Tuesday priced the offering at a 20 percent discount to the low end of its indicated range.

Even so, the deal was saved only after Sweden's Vattenfall [VATN.UL] and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) stepped in, due a lack of interest from institutional and retail investors.

Bankers do not expect other companies to follow ENEA's move at such a turbulent time, when high volatility makes it extremely difficult for issuers and investors to agree on valuation during a lengthy six-week long bookbuilding process.

Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility index (VIX), which measures the market's expectation of 30-day volatility on the S&P 500 index, rose to 79 on October 27, an all-time high since its introduction in 1993, before coming down to 60.  Continued...