Companies race to join Shanghai sci & tech market board

Eleven firms have announced plans for listing on the science and technology innovation boardof the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) which began accepting online initial public offering (IPO) applications on Monday.

China Securities News reported Monday that six of them, currently traded on over-the-counter markets or other exchanges, unveiled the decisions to enter the new board in statements, while the other five released their plans in documents on IPOs.

All the firms were in strategically emerging industries, including bio-medicine, high-end equipment manufacturing, software and new material.

New Third Board-listed companies do not needto delist from that OTC market board while awaiting their approval from the Science and Technology Innovation Board. It usually takes two months for a listed company to delist, but experts say the delisting procedure in this particular situation won't be slow.

Proposed in November 2018 and approved in January, the new board will experiment with registration-based IPOs and focus on high-tech and strategically emerging sectors.

It offers companies preferential listing thresholds. Companies that report profits of 50 million yuan on aggregate in the previous two years and have a capitalization of no less than one billion yuan are qualified to apply for an IPO on the new board. Companies which are not yet profitable, but whose sales in the previous year exceed 300 million yuan are also eligible to file an IPO application.

Yi Huiman, head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said the establishment of the new board is of great significance in promoting technological innovation, high-quality development of the economy and market-oriented reform of the capital market.

(CGTN)