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Competition hots up for S’pore’s IPO leadership

This article is more than 12 months old

The local market is on track to keep its top spot as the leading South-east Asian listings market for the second straight year but its rivals are closing in.

More than $4 billion will have been raised here by the year end, according to Deloitte Southeast Asia yesterday. Around $3.66 billion has already been clocked up and November continues to be a busy month.

RE&S Holdings listed on the Catalist board on Wednesday, Mindchamps debuts today and No Signboard commences trading on Nov 30.

And Cromwell European Reit lodged a revamped prospectus on Wednesday after aborting a first initial public offering (IPO) attempt.

But the momentum for IPOs elsewhere in the Asean neighbourhood is gaining pace with rival stock markets like Thailand and Malaysia becoming more attractive.

Deloitte Southeast Asia deputy managing partner for markets Ernest Kan said: “Other countries in Southeast Asia are getting more exciting.

“Five, eight years ago, I wouldn’t even talk much about them, but in the last two, three years, other countries have come up.

“Now, the other markets really have something to compare with us. They are catching up.”

Thailand is the clear leader with regard to the size of companies that sought listings from 2014 to this year.

IPOs in Thailand have added a combined market cap of $11.5 billion to the Thai bourse so far this year.

By contrast, the total market cap of Singapore companies that went public from the start of the year until Nov 15 is about $6.56 billion, said Deloitte.

And while the funds raised through IPOs in Singapore has jumped from $2.26 billion last year to $3.66 billion as at Nov 15 this year, NetLink NBN Trust’s IPO accounted for a whopping $2.3 billion of that.

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