IPO revival primes Hong Kong for another busy year
With city on track for No 2 spot this year, breach of HK$200b mark flagged for 2014
Hong Kong is expected to finish a close second to New York in money raised through initial public offerings this year and may do even better next year, bankers and auditors say.
KPMG, one of the Big Four auditing firms, forecasts that funds raised in Hong Kong listings will cross HK$200 billion next year, compared with about HK$160 billion this year.
Rebecca Chan, a partner with KPMG's China capital markets group, said this year was ending on "a high note for the Hong Kong IPO market".
"The key driver for next year is expected to be a larger number of sizeable deals, including large IPOs from spin-offs of local listed companies that would each raise more than HK$30 billion," she said.
Chan would not name any "sizeable deals", but one that market participants expect to land on the Hong Kong stock exchange is Alibaba, the mainland's No1 e-commerce firm.