A hot market starts to sputter
BACK in May, the biggest problem for bankers, lawyers and accountants in Hong Kong was finding enough people to handle a deluge of initial public offerings (IPOs). Come July and the mood has abruptly changed. Officially only seven IPOs have been abandoned this year, meaning that a prospectus has been issued and withdrawn. But plenty more have been shelved at an earlier stage on worries about China’s slowing economy (which were reinforced by another interest-rate rise this week).
The bullish view is that any pause in the IPO frenzy will be short-lived. PwC, a consultancy, this week forecast that the second half of 2011 would be even more active than the first. It expects a total of 110 IPOs for the year in Hong Kong (after 48 in the first six months) and almost triple that number on the mainland, in Shenzhen and Shanghai. Edmond Chan, a PwC partner, points out that the first-half boom came in spite of Japan’s earthquake, the Arab spring and crisis in Greece. ...
