China to ease rules on listings for its Nasdaq-like ChiNext board this year
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Pedestrians ride an escalator near an electronic board showing the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock indexes in Shanghai on March 13, 2020.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - It will soon be a lot easier for mainland firms to list on China's volatile ChiNext board, the nation's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises.
The regulator will unveil rules to adopt so-called registration-based initial public offerings on the ChiNext by the end of June, and implement them this year, according to a statement by the State Council on Thursday (June 12). The proposal, announced in April, could cut the review period for listing to months from years, and would scrap limits on price moves for the first five trading days.
China's securities regulator had been considering making such reforms to the world's second-largest stock market since at least 2013, when it pledged to move toward a US-style IPO registration system. Last year, the country rolled out a stock board in Shanghai which was seen as a testing ground for relaxed listing and trading rules.
The move comes at a time when increasing numbers of US-listed Chinese firms are seeking to sell shares in Hong Kong amid growing tensions between Beijing and Washington. China's No 2 online retailer JD.com raised HK$30.1 billion (S$5.4 billion) in its Hong Kong share sale, people familiar with the matter said, cementing the world's second-biggest listing this year.
The Shenzhen exchange said in late May that it will start taking new listing applications for ChiNext to within 10 working days after the registration-based system takes effect. The ChiNext, which was the epicentre of a 2015 bubble in mainland shares, entered a bull market this week after gaining more than 20 per cent from its March low.
