The NASDAQ-style STAR Market Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has just logged its 200th initial public offering (IPO) a little over a year after its official opening in mid-2019.
Newtouch Software became the 200th company to list on the STAR Board on Monday 7 December, bringing the total amount raised via the new board to over 287.6 billion yuan (approx. USD$44 billion).
The STAR Market officially opened on 13 June 2019 as a board dedicated to the listing of Chinese tech companies, after President Xi Jinping first unveiled plans for its launch in November 2018.
Regulations for the STAR Market are looser than those for the SSE’s main board, allowing some companies to launch IPO’s prior to becoming profitable and others to register without the need for prior approval from authorities.
“Our figures indicate that the average time to IPO for STAR Market companies under the registration system already approaches that of mature capital markets overseas,” said Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance, in a statement.
The STAR Market has also become a big draw for foreign investors, whose stake in its listed concerns rose from 270 million yuan at the end of 2019 to 5.64 billion yuan as of the end of November, accounting for 0.17% of its total market capitalisation.
