Taiwan’s initial public offerings (IPO) delivered record fundraising last year and momentum is poised to be maintained this year, supported by regulatory reforms and continued strength in technology-
related industries, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said on Wednesday.
Seventy-seven companies were newly listed on Taiwan’s stock exchanges last year, a notable increase from 67 in 2024, including listings on the Taiwan Innovation Board (TIB), transfers from the over-the-counter market and corporate restructurings into holding companies, PwC Taiwan said in a report.
Photo: AFP
Fundraising activity was even more striking. Total IPO proceeds reached NT$111.7 billion (US$3.6 billion), nearly doubling from NT$57.6 billion a year earlier and setting a new annual record, it said.
By sector, semiconductors led IPO activity, with 13 newly listed companies, underscoring Taiwan’s entrenched strength in advanced manufacturing and chip-related technologies, the consultancy said.
Digital and cloud services, and the biotechnology and healthcare sector followed closely, with 10 new listings each, reflecting rising investor interest in innovation-driven and next-generation industries, it said.
High-potential subsidiaries of large corporate groups played an increasingly important role. Such listings accounted for 18 percent of total IPO fundraising, or about NT$20.48 billion, highlighting their strong capital-raising capabilities and contribution to overall market vitality, the report said.
PwC Taiwan expects the number of IPOs to remain robust this year, supported by efforts by the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange to build a multi-tiered capital market and attract companies from a broader range of industries.
Supportive policies, noticeably the “TIB 3.0” initiative, are making fundraising more accessible and efficient for issuers, the consultancy said.
PwC Taiwan assurance services head Frank Lin (林永智) said in the report that the rollout of TIB 3.0, a series of regulatory relaxations, would help enhance market liquidity and overall attractiveness.
Under the new framework, day trading of TIB-listed stocks is now permitted, investment limits for mutual funds have been eased and application procedures for domestic companies seeking TIB listings have been significantly streamlined, Lin said.
Reforms include improved mechanisms for foreign issuers and more flexible transfers between the TIB, the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange, he said.
The changes have been instrumental in drawing companies from digital cloud services, biotech healthcare, and green and sustainable industries into Taiwan’s capital market ecosystem, Lin said.
Chen Chin-chang (陳晉昌), another PwC Taiwan assurance executive, said Taiwan’s long-standing focus on electronics-related industries is set to continue this year, particularly in semiconductors and digital cloud technologies.
High-growth subsidiaries of major corporate groups are expected to remain a key driver of IPO activity, supporting their own expansion plans and the broader strategic development of their parent companies, he said.
GROWING OWINGS: While Luxembourg and China swapped the top three spots, the US continued to be the largest exposure for Taiwan for the 41st consecutive quarter The US remained the largest debtor nation to Taiwan’s banking sector for the 41st consecutive quarter at the end of September, after local banks’ exposure to the US market rose more than 2 percent from three months earlier, the central bank said. Exposure to the US increased to US$198.896 billion, up US$4.026 billion, or 2.07 percent, from US$194.87 billion in the previous quarter, data released by the central bank showed on Friday. Of the increase, about US$1.4 billion came from banks’ investments in securitized products and interbank loans in the US, while another US$2.6 billion stemmed from trust assets, including mutual funds,
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
JOINT EFFORTS: MediaTek would partner with Denso to develop custom chips to support the car-part specialist company’s driver-assist systems in an expanding market MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s largest mobile phone chip designer, yesterday said it is working closely with Japan’s Denso Corp to build a custom automotive system-on-chip (SoC) solution tailored for advanced driver-assistance systems and cockpit systems, adding another customer to its new application-specific IC (ASIC) business. This effort merges Denso’s automotive-grade safety expertise and deep vehicle integration with MediaTek’s technologies cultivated through the development of Media- Tek’s Dimensity AX, leveraging efficient, high-performance SoCs and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to offer a scalable, production-ready platform for next-generation driver assistance, the company said in a statement yesterday. “Through this collaboration, we are bringing two