The number of initial public offerings (IPO) on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) is expected to slightly rebound from 19 last year to 24 this year due to an improving local economy and technology firms seeking to raise capital from equity markets, the exchange said yesterday.
Last year’s IPO count fell 34 percent from 29 in 2018, missing a TWSE target of 28, as many companies delayed their debuts given uncertainty in the global and local economies, TWSE Chairman Hsu Jan-yau (許璋瑤) told a news conference in Taipei.
Many foreign bourses also reported declines in IPO activity due to companies’ conservative outlook, Hsu said.
The number of IPOs on the London Stock Exchange fell 42 percent to 63, while on the New York Stock Exchange, they halved to 28, he said.
However, with economic uncertainty expected to ease and growth to improve in Taiwan, the TWSE expects IPO activity to recover this year, TWSE Senior Vice President Joe Cheng (鄭村) said, adding that a few companies have already expressed an intention to go public, including budget airline Tigerair Taiwan Ltd (台灣虎航).
“We will have a clearer picture after March, when companies disclose their earnings results for the whole year of last year. Some companies might resume IPO launches if their financial performance was solid last year,” Cheng said.
The TWSE would continue to look for companies that have good earnings results to fuel IPO momentum, Cheng said.
Although the National Development Council last month said that artificial intelligence developer Appier Inc (沛星互動科技) and electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) are unicorns, as they were valued at US$1 billion each, they have not yet decided whether to debut in Taiwan this year, he said.
The TWSE did not make a prediction about how much capital would be raised through IPOs this year, as it would depend on how attractive each debut is, he said.
Last year, NT$23.32 billion (US$774.62 million) was raised through IPOs, compared with NT$16.73 billion in 2018, TWSE data showed.
Cheng said that he did not expect any substantial impact from the planned resumption of cross-border listings between the Shanghai and London exchanges.
“Taiwan’s equity market is not a substitute for its Chinese peer,” Cheng said.
The cross-border listings would make it more convenient for foreign investors to invest in Chinese stocks, as China has strict control on inflows, outflows and stock investments, he said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained