TeleEye Holdings, Hong Kong's first listed spin-off by a local academic institution, enjoyed a euphoric trading debut on the Growth Enterprise Market yesterday with its shares rising to more than double their issue price.
The success could provide a model to SAR academic circles for commercialising their research projects, according to the company's management.
TeleEye - which is 57.8 per cent-owned by four founders and CityU Enterprises, an investment arm of the City University of Hong Kong - saw its shares rise 126 per cent from their issue price of 60 HK cents, to close at HK$1.36.
The price surge followed last week's over-subscription of 109 times the total eight million new shares allocated in the public offer tranche of the flotation.
Chief executive and co-founder Cliff Chan Chok-ki said: Our company's case could provide a successful model for the local academic circle.
It can accelerate the development of academic research's commercialisation in Hong Kong.
Mr Chan, a professor at the City University until December last year, predicted local research projects would increasingly choose to go public for funding.