Although listings of mainland Chinese companies fell this year in the Hong Kong market, it is expected that as many as 20 companies are planning initial public offerings. Business Week reports:
While about 110 companies are seeking approval to list their shares and about 40 have permission to go ahead, between 10 and 20 firms, mostly from the mainland, are likely to complete IPOs by Dec. 31, said Lawrence Fok, chief marketing officer for the Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Ltd. Hong Kong’s benchmark measure for mainland companies climbed more than 10 percent last week while the Bloomberg China-US 55 Index of Chinese stocks in the U.S. rose 6.5 percent.
“Even if more and more state-owned enterprises are listing on our exchange, the next big wave will be the private enterprises,” Fok said in an interview Dec. 2 in New York. “Some very successful private enterprises, especially in the consumer business, are looking to tap the capital market.”
Some companies are in a rush to catch “the last train” in 2011 for IPOs even amid “poor” market conditions on concern that 2012 might be worse, Francis Lun, managing director at Lyncean Holdings Ltd. in Hong Kong said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Nov. 29. “If you get the money now, you can do a lot of things. You can buy distressed assets, for example.”
