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Fourty-one companies go public in 1st quarter

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-21 15:06

The first quarter saw 41 Chinese companies go public, raising 14 billion U.S. dollars, according to a quarterly report from consultancy Zero2IPO.

The report said fourteen "China concept shares" debuted on NASDAQ, NYSE, SGX, HKMB and AIM, raising more than two billion U.S. dollars; meanwhile, 27 domestic IPOs pulled in more than 12 billion U.S. dollars on the Shenzhen SME Board and theShanghai Stock Exchange.

Fourteen overseas IPOs netted 3.65 billion U.S. dollars, nine of which were backed byventure capital(VC) orprivate equity(PE) funds. Five out of 27 domestic debuts were backed by VC/PE funds.

Some Chinese companies went public in Tokyo recently, Zero2IPOCEONi Zhengdong said, adding that the second quarter will witness a similar number of overseas IPOs.

The HKMB stood out from the eight overseas markets by attracting seven Chinese debuts with 1.5 billion U.S. dollars raised. The SGX followed with three IPOs. The U.S. NASDAQ and NYSE attracted three Chinese debuts.

While 21 companies or 78 percent of the domestic IPOs happened on the Shenzhen SME Board, theShanghaiStock Exchange raised 11 billion U.S. dollars, 93 percent of the mainland's total.

Ping An Insurance, China Life and Industrial Bank raised an aggregate of 10.8 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 90 percent of the total amount.

The three blue chips further augmented the market capitalization of the Shanghai Exchange after ICBC, BOC, Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway and Datang International Power Generation, which went public in 2006.

Traditional sectors were active in listing overseas. Eight companies in traditional industries raised nearly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 57 percent of the total.

As in 2006, the biological and healthcare sectors witnessed four IPOs.

The first three months witnessed 24mergers, a sharp decrease on the last quarter of 2006, but nearly the same as the first quarter of last year.

The report estimated that the world's stock market will continue to rise because of excessive global liquidity which will incite more China enterprises to debut on overseas markets.

Nevertheless China'sM&ARules, the Provisions for Foreign Investors to Merge and Acquire Domestic Enterprises, will limit listings of private companies, the main force of China-based overseas IPOs.

It is expected that overseas IPOs will remain steady in the second quarter.

The VC/PE-backed IPOs will considerably increase in both domestic and overseas markets. In addition, with mainland-based enterprises debuting on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, Chinese enterprises will have more options to explore overseas markets, said the report.