Saturday 14 November 2009

Nasdaq sees doubling of its Chinese listings

Nasdaq OMX Group said the number of Greater China companies listed on its exchange could double in as little as two years, fuelled by a growing appetite for these shares from a wider range of institutional investors in the United States.

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Guanyu said...

Nasdaq sees doubling of its Chinese listings

Reuters in Beijing
14 November 2009

Nasdaq OMX Group said the number of Greater China companies listed on its exchange could double in as little as two years, fuelled by a growing appetite for these shares from a wider range of institutional investors in the United States.

Three of the top 10 performing initial public offerings in the US this year were Chinese firms, and all listed on Nasdaq, Robert McCooey, a senior vice-president and the head of global listings, said yesterday.

“The US investor, especially on the institutional side, is very receptive to the Chinese company,” said McCooey, referring to listings such as those from Changyou.com and Lihua International.

Highlighting that broader appeal, mainland firms were now taking their roadshows to US cities outside the traditional stops in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, he said.

Chinese firms were not just attracting the attention of portfolio managers focused on China but also those eyeing more generally global growth businesses across a broad range of industries, McCooey said.

“They recognise China has the greatest opportunities for their companies,” he said.

That appetite will underpin the Greater China region as Nasdaq’s largest source of foreign company listings in the coming years.

“In two to three years, we will double the number of Chinese listings to 250,” he said.

McCooey said he expected flotations from Greater China to total 125 by the end of this year, and mainland firms would account for 50 per cent of its total foreign listings within three years, up from about a third.

Stock exchanges around the world are competing for business and new listings from China as Beijing maps out plans to develop domestic capital markets.

McCooey was confident the Chinese listing pie was growing and all exchanges could benefit, even after Beijing introduced a new growth enterprise board, ChiNext, last month to provide badly needed funding to start-ups.

Nasdaq has successfully persuaded Sinovac Biotech, one of the designated H1N1 flu vaccine producers in China, to transfer its American Exchange-listed shares to the Nasdaq from next week.