The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition investment bankers are set to close out 2014 on a continued slow path. The Post's Barry Critchley, writing in Off the Record, says the pace of financing, especially for common equity, has slowed dramatically over the last month. What the dealers are looking for is a financing of the scale that Barrick Gold announced in October, 2013 -- $3-billion (U.S.) of stock with a juicy 3-per-cent fee. Based on current trends, the final quarter of the year may not see a total of $3-billion of equity raised from all issuers. According to information prepared by FP Data Group, so far this quarter $2.86-billion has been raised from 69 issues of common shares, trust units and convertible debentures. At that level, activity is down 77.9 per cent from the previous quarter and down 77.1 per cent from the same quarter of 2013. The current quarter's $2.86-billion of equity raised is the lowest in the last five years. However, even if there are no equity raises for the rest of the year, the amount of equity issued will be $38.63-billion. Mr. Critchley figures this will be the best equity-financing year for many years, proving equity raising is a lumpy business.