Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is talking to experts about a plan to streamline the listing process to compete with other bourse operators across Asia, it said in an industry consultation paper.
'We focus on shortening the timetable, lowering costs and reducing the paperwork burden. We are not proposing any substantive changes in content requirements, though,' said Mark Dickens, HKEx's head of listing.
For a typical initial public offering in Hong Kong, it takes about six months to do a full listing, including submitting listing documents and drafting the prospectus.
'It will take time for me to look through the full HKEx consultation paper, but I would like to suggest HKEx simplify the whole listing process,' said a corporate banker. 'It always takes more than three months for the question-and-answer session, but it's usually just 30 to 40 pages of irrelevant questions.'
The long process also forces companies seeking a listing to incur a series of one-off costs, and that can be a discouraging factor for some overseas companies that do not face the same costs in their home market, said Castor Pang Wai-sun, a strategist at Sun Hung Kai Financial.
'The listing procedure seems tedious compared with other Asian countries, especially since the exchange requires quite a lot of working days to get through it,' said Mr Pang.
