IPO fundraising doubles in H1 despite COVID-19

IPO fundraising doubled year-on-year in the first half of this year despite the fight against COVID-19, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Tuesday.

The normal operation of issuing and reviewing new shares still made the number of new shares issued in H1 reach 128, and the total scale of fundraising reached 100 billion in the same period.

As of June 30 this year, the total scale of implemented and unimplemented IPOs in the domestic capital market has reached 143.63 billion yuan ($20.32 billion), a year-on-year increase of 134.85 percent compared with 61.16 billion yuan of the same period last year, according to Wind, a financial data provider in China.

In terms of regions, Beijing, South China's Guangdong province, and East China's Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai become the top five provinces and municipalities that contributed the largest amount of IPO capital.

In terms of industries, railway transportation, computer communication, pharmaceutical manufacturing, electrical machinery and special equipment manufacturing became the top five most popular industries in the IPO market in H1.

The STAR Market, or the science and technology innovation board, has become an important force constituting the scale of IPOs. Statistics show that among the top 20 projects initially issued in the first half of the year, as many as 10 projects came from the STAR Market.

Measures taken by regulatory and market institutions in response to the epidemic outbreak played an important role in ensuring the normal operations of the new share market. The increasing number of STAR Market projects also increased the activity of the new share market in the first half of the year, industrial insider said.

More IPO projects and a larger scale of IPO fundraising are expected to land in the second half of this year, analysts said.