Shenzhen leads ipo race

The significance of Shenzhen, a city unknown to many Westerners, may be underestimated, at least from the CBN list.

The city outperformed Shanghai in terms of number of to-be-listed companies (55 compared with 44), a sign of the city's vigorous corporate sector and promising future. Home to household names such as China Vanke Co Ltd, China Merchants Bank, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Tencent Holding Ltd, Ping An Insurance (Group) Co of China Ltd, Shenzhen is a hotbed for private entrepreneurship.

If measured by the number of private companies to be listed, Shenzhen even beat Beijing. The latter had 17 SOEs in its 64 companies to be listed, while there are only three SOEs in Shenzhen's 55 companies to be listed.