The Hong Kong Stock Exchange ("HKEx") raised USD 57.4 billion with 87 IPOs in 2010, making it the world's leading stock exchange in 2010 for funds raised. Its success has been largely facilitated by the listing of Chinese-based companies seeking to access to the international equity market, as the HKEx is completely open to foreign investors.
Julia Leung Fung-yee, the HKEx's undersecretary for financial services and the treasury was recently quoted saying that the HKEx and the Securities and Futures Commission ("SFC") have the ambition to attract more international firms through secondary listings on the HKEx and expressed their intention to work on changing rules to reduce the procedures needed when applying for a secondary listing on the HKEx. Secondary listing on the HKEx has increasingly caught the interest of non-Chinese companies looking to engage the Chinese market, while HKEx's market liquidity has led an increasing number of Chinese companies listed on other stock exchanges to consider a secondary listing.
Regarding the proposed changes in rules, Leung Fung-yee further noted that "Since the companies which would apply for a secondary listing in Hong Kong would already have a primary listing in other markets, it follows they would already have fulfilled those markets' listing requirements. This means we could waive some application requirements or procedures to make it quicker and easier for them to apply for a secondary listing in Hong Kong." She stressed, however, "possible changes to the listing rules will not undermine the protections of investors in Hong Kong."
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