Singapore initial public offerings sure are having trouble getting over the finish line these days.
Electricity generator Summit Power International Ltd. became the latest casualty Tuesday, telling investors it’s shelving a share sale that was targeting $260 million. The move came less than two weeks after Bloomberg News reported Malaysian clinic operator Qualitas Medical Ltd. delayed the pricing of its S$100 million ($76 million) IPO in the city-state.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. Summit Power, the biggest independent power producer in Bangladesh, secured a cornerstone investment from the Asian Development Bank and touted partnerships with the likes of Mitsubishi Corp. Qualitas has been seeking to list in Singapore after postponing plans to sell shares in its home market in 2015.
They’re not the only victims this year. Sinar Mas, the Indonesian conglomerate founded by billionaire Eka Tjipta Widjaja, decided in February to let exchange approval lapse for a proposed IPO of its electricity assets, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.
While some of the offerings could come back at a later date, it doesn’t set a good precedent. The Singapore bourse is seeking to attract new listings after some of its biggest companies, including $11.6 billion warehouse operator Global Logistic Properties Ltd., went private in recent years. It’s been trying to keep up with regional rivals like Hong Kong, which is also in the process of changing its rules to attract more technology startups.
Other listing hopefuls also ran into trouble last year. Cromwell Property Group shelved a real estate trust IPO in September after failing to attract enough demand and ended up completing a smaller deal about two months later. Debt-laden Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co.’s plans for an IPO of commercial property assets got held up amid a tussle with its local partner.
While some deals in Singapore are struggling to get done, investors have been piling into equity offerings in nearby Vietnam.
Warburg Pincus-backed Techcombank is planning to price its IPO at the top of a marketed range, putting it on track to raise $922 million, people with knowledge of the matter said Monday. Luxury developer Vinhomes JSC, which has already attracted an investment from GIC Pte, is gauging demand for a share sale of as much as $2 billion.
Bloomberg
