ChiNext IPOs prove boon to startups and SMEs

The registration-based IPO system of China's Nasdaq-style board for growth enterprises on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has laid a solid foundation for its extension to other boards, the bourse said on Tuesday.

Exactly one year back, ChiNext board embraced the registration-based IPO system. Ever since, ChiNext has been promoting growth startups and innovative enterprises, and supporting traditional industries to deeply integrate with new technology, emerging industries and novel business models.

On Aug 24 last year, the first batch of 18 companies listed on ChiNext through the new IPO system.

Since then, the SZSE has accepted more than 700 IPO applications for listing on ChiNext. And 184 companies had successfully listed as of Tuesday.

That signifies tremendous acceleration as 28 companies listed on ChiNext in 2018, 52 in 2019 and 107 in 2020, suggesting more innovative and entrepreneurial enterprises have been benefiting from direct financing opportunities.

ChiNext aims to extend the reform to both existing and new companies listed on the market. Therefore, besides IPOs, the registration-based reforms also applied to refinancing, mergers and restructuring. The board has introduced a basic capital market mechanism in listings, information disclosure, the suitability management of investors, trading and delisting.

Liang Zhifeng, head of the SME Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said these reforms have stimulated enthusiasm in high-quality small and medium-sized enterprises for listing and financing.

Yang Delong, executive general manager of Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund, said the focus of the ChiNext board is in line with the direction of national economic development and has played a significant part in national scientific and technological innovation.

More than 85 percent of the 184 ChiNext-listed companies are recognized as high-tech companies. The number of patents related to their core operations has exceeded 15,000 units.

Chen Mengjie, chief strategist with Yuekai Securities, said ChiNext's registration-based system has played a key role in facilitating equity financing of innovative companies, reducing their financing costs, and stoking high-quality development of the real economy, with total proceeds raised via the system surpassing 100 billion yuan ($15.43 billion).

Looking ahead, Chen said efforts are needed to improve investor education, so as to help investors reap concrete benefits from the reform and earn their greater support for furthering the reform.

"Making sure that investors fully understand the reform's importance and institutional arrangements and have a mindset of value investing and long-term investing is critical for the reform to come to bigger fruition," she said.

The SZSE released draft rule revisions on Friday that proposed reducing the proportion of institutional investors who are excluded from ChiNext's new share subscriptions due to their high bid prices.

The revisions, seen as the latest step to improve ChiNext's registration-based system, can help redress the pricing distortion of new shares being liable to be priced lower than fair value, and give full play to the market's role in the pricing of new shares, market experts said.

ChiNext's index surged by 1.12 percent to close at 3330.58 points on Tuesday.