More than 600 companies tomorrow are expected to apply for trading on Taiwan's second OTC board, which is to be called TIGER, or Taiwan Innovative Growing Entrepreneurs.
But only 100 or so companies are expected to trade in the board's first year after operations begin in April, officials said.
Officials at the Securities and Futures Commission (
"There are currently 2,000 companies that have not been listed on either the stock exchange or the OTC board," Ding Ker-hua (
"Presently there are more than 600 companies that have accepted assistance from underwriters [in order to make their financial reports transparent].
Because the required period of assistance of the second board is only six months, it is estimated that we can have about 100 companies listed on the second board every year."
In addition, Ding said, the difference between capitalization requirements for the Taiwan Stock Exchange and OTC should be gradually widened.
"In the future, the minimum capitalization for listing on the Taiwan Stock Exchange is likely to be raised from NT$300 million currently to NT$500 million.
"What will happen after that is that securities trading will be segregated into three markets," he said.
Any company with a capitalization of more than NT$500 million will be required to list its shares on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, he said.
Any company with capitalization between NT$50 million and NT$500 million will be traded in the first board of the OTC-ROC (
"Presently there are 120 companies traded on the first board of OTC with a capitalization more than NT$500 million," Ding said.
After the annual financial reports of these companies are disclosed at the end of April, these companies will then be able to apply for listing their shares on the stock exchange.
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