Four Singaporean firms are planning to list on Taiwan’s stock exchange by issuing Taiwan Depositary Receipts or through an initial public offering (IPO), Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (台灣證交所) chairman Schive Chi (薛琦) said.
However, Schive was reluctant to reveal the companies’ names, saying only that they were “highly interested in doing so” during a telephone interview with Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao on Tuesday.
“Medium-sized companies from Singapore in the environmental protection, technology, green energy and service sectors should be welcome in the Taiwanese market,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
“Most of the local firms listed on Taiwan’s bourse are high-tech and information companies, of which many are small but profitable enterprises,” he said, according to the newspaper.
Schive predicted that more foreign enterprises would apply for listings on the local bourse in the second half of this year, citing market statistics showing that 56 companies plan to list sometime this year.
Silicon Valley-based Integrated Memory Logic Ltd, a TFT-LCD maker, will list in Taiwan next week, he said.
Encouraging Singaporean companies that feel they are undervalued to follow suit, Schive said listing in a secondary market would make sense because a strong performance could drive up the company’s share prices in the original market.
COMING BACK
In the past, Singapore’s stock market was more attractive to Taiwanese businessmen, but in recent years, a growing number of Taiwan’s entrepreneurs with investments overseas have returned home to list, attracted by the market’s high price-earnings (P/E) ratios and strong liquidity, Schive said.
Since 2000, shares listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange have averaged a P/E ratio of 20, higher than Singapore’s average of 16 to 17 and Hong Kong’s 15.6, he said.
Another strength is the market’s high cash dividends, Schive said.
In 2008, companies listed on Taiwan’s bourse distributed NT$1 trillion (US$31.5 billion), or about 8.5 percent of the country’s GDP, in cash dividends to shareholders.
Asked whether Taiwan’s stock exchange is willing to sign an agreement with Singapore’s bourse that would encourage firms of both countries to cross-list, Schive cautioned that because it involved currency settlement issues, it would have to be handled carefully and on a step-by-step basis.
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