Singapore IPO proceeds plummet 85% to $715m

Firms in the healthcare and F&B sectors continued to perform well.

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) raised a total of $715m across 13 initial public offering (IPO) deals as of November 2018 which is 85% lower than the $4.6b raised for the full year in 2017, according to professional services firm Deloitte.

This figure includes two company IPOs and one trust on SGX’s mainboard with $134m and $422m funds raised respectively, the firm noted. On the Catalist board, 10 deals raised $159m.

Across the Southeast Asia region, Singapore fell behind Vietnam and Thailand which saw three of the biggest listings in 2018. Overall, Vietnam's IPO market raised $6.2b with Vietnamese real estate developer Vinhomes Joint Stock Company taking the top spot with $3.6b. It was followed by Thailand Future Fund which raised $1.8b and Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank which raised $1.2b. 

By sector, the healthcare continued to do well on the Singapore bourse, with 11 healthcare companies IPOs performing at an average 17% share price in the past five years to date. As well, the food & beverage (F&B) sector performed well with six F&B companies listed that had an average price earnings ratio at IPO of 11.5, with sizeable funds raised and market capitalisation, Deloitte added in a statement.

Additionally, Singapore’s first private securities exchange 1Exchange was launched in November in a bid to present another option for regional and global companies to raise capital. The exchange provides private companies the ability to trade in their simplified securities by leveraging technology to create simple, regulated and cost-effective liquidity options for both private companies and investors, Deloitte revealed.

Going into 2019, the firm said it remained cautiously optimistic for Singapore’s capital markets.

“Depending on the stability of the global economy, we can expect the IPOs that have been delayed in 2018 to seek listing in Q1 2019, and potentially some IPOs from the real estate investment trusts (REITs) and also from the healthcare and F&B sectors,” Tay Hwee Ling, global IFRS & offerings leader at Deloitte Southeast Asia and Singapore, said in a statement. “2019 will see increased vibrancy in the markets when some of SGX’s initiatives in 2018 come to fruition, including the anticipation of the first dual class shares listing since the announcement earlier this year.”