More delays in public offerings and discounts in offering prices are anticipated after local and overseas stock markets tumbled yesterday.
Analysts and brokers said IPO deals in the second half of the year, mainly from the mainland, were likely to be postponed until the fourth quarter, in the hope that markets would improve.
According to an IPO report published by Deloitte in June, the second half of 2011 was expected to see 67 new listings on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with total proceeds of up to HK$217.8 billion. Mainland listings from the retail and consumer, financial services, and energy and resources sectors were tipped to be the focus.
Edward Au, a partner at Deloitte who works with the firm's national public offerings group, said banks might scale down the size of deals in order to proceed with their listing plans because of their need to fulfil the mainland's higher capital and liquidity requirements, as well as increased reserve ratio requirements under current regulations.
Other financial services companies, like insurance companies and brokerage and securities firms, were more likely to postpone because they were under no immediate pressure to raise funds.
Kenny Tang Sing-hing, a general manager at AMTD Financial Planning, said new shares would not be attractive to retail investors unless their offering price was competitive.
But he expected IPOs from the consumer and retail sector to be less affected than those from the financial sector in terms of timing, deal size and price range because of the steady growth in local consumption.
