Listings tightening enters next stage

Securities regulator to carry out random checks for compliance

The China Securities Regulatory Commission's implementation of tighter rules for would-be publicly listed companies has entered a second phase.

After a three-month period for companies to examine their own listing qualifications, officials said they had now moved into a period of random checks on company compliance with listing laws and regulations.

The self-examination period was ordered by former CSRC chairman Guo Shuqing, now the acting governor of Shandong province. All companies waiting to be listed had to re-examine their publicly released information to ensure it was "authentic, objective, and accurate".

All companies on the initial public offerings, or IPO, waiting list were required to hand in their self-examination reports by March 31.

The random checks will now be carried out by Xiao Gang, Guo's successor.

No timetable has been given yet as to when the temporary halt of initial public offerings will be lifted in the A-share market. And due to a three-day public holiday this week, the CSRC's regular press conference won't be held on Friday, so no answers are expected this week.

The conditions for the reopening of IPOs remain uncertain but will be addressed by the CSRC the following week.

No companies have been listed in the A-share market in the past five months.

Xiao is expected to make sure that the regulator's policies are kept firm and consistent, the China Securities Journal quoted a source from the CSRC as saying last Friday.

All the CSRC efforts so far have pointed in one direction: to make an A-share market IPO so difficult and so costly - in both legal terms and potential financial penalties for irregularities - that companies chasing easy profits are driven away, analysts said.

The tighter rules apply to the CSRC itself, and Xiao pledged to start building a regular system for the release of information.

By March 29, as many as 124 companies waiting for IPOs had terminated their applications, while 765 chose to continue waiting for the regulator's approval of their listing plans.

Of the 124 companies, 104 were reportedly planning to list on the country's Growth Enterprise Board.

But those companies withdrew their applications mainly because they feared that they could not pass the market regulator's increased scrutiny, analysts said.

As to when there will be new IPOs, Mao Changqing, a senior analyst with Citic Securities, said he expects the ban to be lifted in the second quarter of the year, before the end of June.

Meanwhile, the reopening of the IPOs will not affect China's stock market as much as some people fear, Mao said.

China saw a temporary halt of IPOs six times in its history, and in the six weeks following the six restarts of IPOs, the stock market rose and fell three times.

There is a lot of uncertainty when the restart of IPOs is drawing near. But once it happens, all the pressure will be dissipated, Mao added.

"My opinion is that if the restart of IPOs comes with a reform of the issuing practices, it will be a good thing for China's stock market in the long term," Mao said.