Hong Kong no match for Lion City's winning IPO formula

The Hong Kong market for initial public offerings (IPO) is as dull and dank as swamp water. Some deals have even been pulled, which means the line of listing applicants just gets longer.

Lurking in the queue of IPO hopefuls are some names that should be very familiar by now. From the financial institutions we have Haitong Securities, China Everbright Bank and People's Insurance Company of China.

In the energy and mining sectors, Sany Heavy, XCMG, Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi and Chinalco's Peruvian mining business are still staking out their places.

Some of these names have been hovering over the Hong Kong market since last year. Others, while large and liquid, may not necessarily turn out to be the easy deals they appear at first glance, such as Graff Diamonds, which we reviewed previously.

The contrast with Southeast Asia could not be more stark. The past few weeks have seen a number of high-profile transactions announced across the region. These include the possible flotation of the Formula One championship company in Singapore, owned by CVC Capital Partners, for which valuation talk is around the US$10 billion mark.

There is also the US$1 billion-plus IPO of Reliance Communications, also in Singapore, as well as ARA's proposed offering of a yuan-denominated real estate investment trust (REIT) following the disappointing listing of Hui Xian in Hong Kong and the possible relaunch of Manchester United's listing, both again in Singapore.