Thailand leads Southeast Asia IPO boom with $4.2b in 2021 so far

IPO
Image by Denys Prykhodov | Bigstockphoto

At a recent event, Deloitte revealed that initial public offering (IPO) activity in Southeast Asia’s capital markets was robust for the first 10.5 months of 2021. Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia accounted for 95% of total funds raised, pushing the region to its highest level in five years.

Thailand, in particular, is the region’s leading country for IPOs, raising $4.2 billion out of a total of $9.8 billion so far. PTT Oil and Retail Business raised the country’s most valuable IPO of $1.8 billion on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).

In addition to oil firms, telecommunications, retail, and financial businesses in Thailand have also been attractive to a wide range of investors.

“We expect at least ten more IPOs in Thailand to top off an already stellar year,” said Wilasinee Krishnamra, Disruptive Events Advisory Leader, Deloitte Thailand. The SET may also see an increase in digital and technological offerings, according to the performance of recently listed technology firms in the Market for Alternative Investment.

This is the third consecutive year that Thailand has come out on top in terms of raising the highest IPO funds. The country’s solid economy, strong currency, low interest rates, and consistently robust domestic liquidity have been the major drivers of IPO activity.

Meanwhile, the lack of IPOs in Singapore is due to the non-existence of REITs, which are typically used to underpin an IPO capital market. The Singapore Exchange has raised $270 million in IPO proceeds from five IPOs as of November 15th.

The new regulatory framework for Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) listings was released this September, and it is expected to aid the Singaporean capital market recover from its drought IPO spell, according to Deloitte.

The advent of more IPOs from Southeast Asia, according to Tay Hwee Ling, a Disruptive Events Advisory Leader at Deloitte Southeast Asia and Singapore, will have a beneficial impact and help boost the growth potential of Singapore as an international capital market.

Tay believes that there will still be a lot of listings accessible at the end of the year, and he is excited about Southeast Asian firms raising more than $10 billion in capital, which would break the numbers for each of the last five years.

In a sign of the region’s increasing maturity, SoftBank Ventures Asia’s Principal Kenneth Low expects more IPOs and SPAC transactions in the next 24 months or more, given that global markets remain stable.

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