Statistics
New York Trailed Hong Kong For IPO Fund-Raising In 2016 - PwC
New York City lost out to Hong Kong last year for being the center with the most initial public offerings in terms of fund-raising totals, figures show.
New liquidity event data from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the professional services firm, shows that Hong Kong came out top in 2016 for the amount of funds raised in share floats, beating Shanghai and New York in second and third place, respectively, as geopolitical uncertainties affected money-raisings. It predicts total fundraising in 2017 to reached HK$220 billion ($28.4 billion).
Total fund-raising in Hong Kong fell 26 per cent year-on-year to $194.8 billion.
PwC said the slow global economic recovery, Brexit, the US presidential election and rising interest rates created a difficult fund-raising environment in certain jurisdictions; in Hong Kong’s case, organizations are still seeing it as their “first choice of fundraising platform in Asia and even worldwide”.
IPOs, along with sales of companies, share option usage and other "liquidity events", are tracked by wealth managers seeking new clients.
There were a total of 126 new listings in 2016, of which 81 were Main Board listings. These mostly comprised industrial companies, followed by retail, consumer goods and services and financial services companies. Some 45 were global emerging market (GEM) listings, the biggest number of GEM IPOs in Hong Kong since 2002.
“It is expected that the momentum of GEM IPOs will extend into 2017. In addition, PwC has noted that more and more small- and medium-sized enterprises were listed in Hong Kong in 2016, and it is expected that this trend will continue into 2017 as well,” it said.
“Uncertainty in the global economy in 2016 dragged down overall fundraising. This, combined with volatility in mainland China stock markets earlier this year and a slowdown in China’s economic growth, prompted investors and companies planning to list in Hong Kong to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, intensifying the risk-averse sentiment in the market and impacting the investment appetite for and pricing of new listings,” Eddie Wong, partner of capital markets services, PwC Hong Kong, said.
