Markets
10:46, 10-Jan-2019
U.S. IPO market suspends due to government shutdown
Updated
09:57, 13-Jan-2019
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There will be no new initial public offerings (IPOs) since Wednesday until the U.S. partial government shutdown is resolved, said Renaissance Capital on Wednesday, due to the consequent partial closure of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The U.S. institutional research service's statement complies with the SEC's operations plan under a lapse in appropriations and government shutdown, which was publicized on the latter's official website in December last year. The IPO-focused company's statement was also reposted by the official website of Nasdaq.
The SEC halted reviewing and approving corporate registration statements and other related paperwork on Wednesday, following the last IPO filing of Exeter Finance, a full-service subprime auto lender backed by U.S. multinational private equity Blackstone, as of Tuesday.
As the U.S. government shutdown lurches into the third week with no signs of the end, only eight companies have filed for IPO so far in January.
A sidewalk that leads to Hains Point at East Potomac Park is closed due to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government, on January 7, 2019, in Washington, DC. / VCG Photo
A sidewalk that leads to Hains Point at East Potomac Park is closed due to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government, on January 7, 2019, in Washington, DC. / VCG Photo
Among them, there was one Chinese company, Powerbridge Technologies, a provider of global trade management applications based in Zhuhai, a city in south China's Guangdong Province.
The Chinese tech company filed on January 4 with the SEC to up to 15 million U.S. dollars in an IPO.
Such companies now have to protract their plans to trade in the U.S. stock market until the country's government agencies eventually re-open, which indicates a sluggish start of the U.S. IPO market in 2019.
Apart from the seemingly interminable U.S. government shutdown, Renaissance Capital attributed the slow start of 2019 U.S. IPO market largely to two other factors.
One is that January is typically a less active month for IPOs. Another lies in the market's recent downturn and a spike in volatility, which makes it difficult to price new deals.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency