SINGAPORE– Singapore’s stock market this month released brand-new guidelines enabling SPACs to list, a relocation it hopes will draw more companies to raise funds in the city-state amidst an IPO market that has actually been stagnant for several years.
As of Friday, unique function acquisition business can note on the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) mainboard.
SPACs, which have actually skyrocketed in appeal just recently, have no industrial operations and are developed exclusively to raise capital from financiers for the function of obtaining several operating services. They raise capital in a going public and utilize the money to combine with a personal business and take it public.
Singapore’s benchmark index has actually generally been controlled by financing and residential or commercial property names. But the exchange has actually set its sights on drawing tech business, and it believes that SPACs will be an excellent way to do so.
Mohamed Nasser Ismail, SGX’s head of equity capital markets, informed CNBC on Monday that SPACs supply an alternative path for business to access public markets.
“There is now a growing pool of new technology or new economy companies that are rising across the region that will find the SPACs route … in Singapore to be an attractive, valuable and sustainable way of securing funding going forward,” Nasser informed CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
Companies that pursue a SPAC listing on the SGX need to satisfy a minimum market capitalization of 150 million Singapore dollars ($111 million).
Singapore’s stagnant IPO market
SPACs have actually blown up in appeal, particularly in the U.S. There have actually been 358 SPAC IPOs up until now this year in the U.S., soaring over 800% from the year prior to. That represent the large bulk of the 379 SPAC IPOs internationally up until now this year, according to information from consultancy EY. The remainder of the SPAC IPOs remained in Europe.
Over in Asia, Singapore would be the very first bourse to use the SPAC path, according to Reuters.
That might supply a much-needed injection of fresh interest for Singapore’s IPO market, which has actually not drawn much interest from business– even its own– regardless of the bourse’s efforts to make listing in the city-state appealing.
Singapore- headquartered ride-hailing giant Grab, for instance, prepares to note on the Nasdaq when its SPAC merger with Altimeter GrowthCorp is finished.
In the very first half of this year, Singapore drew simply 3 listings– a 50% drop from a year earlier, according EY information. In contrast, Hong Kong, thought about a competitor to Singapore’s monetary center status, drew in 46 listings in the very same duration.
The quantity of cash raised was likewise far less. Singapore’s 3 IPOs had an overall of $200 million in earnings, while Hong Kong’s 46 listings raised $274 billion.
For business, SGX’s Nasser states that a SPAC “brings certain advantages that a traditional IPO route may not have.”
“SPACs can provide better certainty in terms of timing, valuation and execution,” he stated.
