Comparision of IPO listing fees

A look at the costs of listings on the various leading exchanges around this region. Note the higher costs of listing on SGX. SGX does not offer much attractiveness. The local investor base is much smaller compared to the leading exchanges. Upside maybe potential interest from Temasek and GIC. Listing on HKSE offers visibility and access to potential capital flows from a blooming China. Listing on ASX offers local investors alternatives to the traditional oil, gas, resources and real estate companies.

This is just a simplistic view, do note that there are many other factors not listed here, e.g. reporting and compliance costs; business costs, tax rates and locale; costs of funds, etc.

What can the authorities and regulators do?
1) Open up the playing field and revise requirements to allow more official exchanges and brokerages to operate in Singapore to drive down costs and increase competitiveness.

2) Reduce costs of clearing, trading, brokerage and banking licenses. Encourage fintech and innovation.

3) Recognize the micro structure challenges for local investors. Most locals have asset locked up in CPF, long term housing loans, car loans; Streamline onerous trading practices e.g.the need to re-enter password again on placing every electronic order, 2FA.

What can SGX do?
1) Their strategy is to grow via synergistic acquisition. Evident from the failed ASX acquisition proposal and the recent bid for Baltic Exchange to grow the commodity/derivatives business.

2) Look at growing local / regional listings rather than chasing high profile listings. Reduce costs of listing for companies. Programmes for supporting growth and visibility for listed companies. Build practical business and value for listing on SGX. Short term pain for long term gains.

3) Reduce personnel bloat, attract capable and passionate talents. Ineptness evident from the inability to solve trading outages over the past years; penny stock pump and dump (LionGold, Asiasons, Blumont) from 4 years back still under investigation; subsequent idea to create a MTP (minimum trading price) is a failure, creating additional costs and compliance overheads for listed companies.