Striving for Chinese and Southeast Asian companies, the Singapore Exchange plans to join hands with Nasdaq to revitalize IPOs.

The Singapore Exchange is seeking to attract more Chinese and Southeast Asian companies to list in Singapore, aiming to reverse a longstanding trend of more delistings than listings over the past decade. The exchange is hoping that a dual listing mechanism, launched in partnership with Nasdaq, will inject new momentum into its long-sluggish IPO market.

On Thursday, Pol de Win, SGX’s Global Head of Sales and Origination, said in an interview that the dual listing mechanism with Nasdaq, expected to launch mid-year, will attract more high-growth companies. "The deal pipeline is much richer than six months ago," said the executive, who joined SGX from Goldman Sachs in 2021. "We’re seeing new deals move into the pipeline at a faster pace."

Signs of market recovery are beginning to emerge. Bloomberg data shows that in 2025, total fundraising in the Singapore market rose to $1.9 billion, a six-year high. Intellectual property data provider Patsnap is reportedly considering a dual listing in Hong Kong and Singapore, and units of Boustead Singapore’s real estate investment trust also plan to list in Singapore as early as March.

SGX’s half-year earnings announced Thursday fell short of analyst expectations, with the share price down as much as 1.7% on the day. For the six months ended December 31 last year, net profit rose 0.8% year-on-year to S$342.7 million, while average daily securities trading value rose 20% year-on-year to S$1.51 billion.

Fundraising Scale Rebounds to Six-Year High

The Singapore market is showing signs of recovery. In 2025, total IPO fundraising reached $1.9 billion, the highest since 2019. This performance benefited from increased trading activity across several sectors.

Pol de Win revealed that SGX is building a healthy pipeline of IPO candidates in traditional sectors such as real estate as well as technology. The dual listing mechanism with Nasdaq will attract companies that would not have chosen Singapore as a listing destination.

The Singapore government is also taking steps to boost trading activity, planning to invest S$5 billion (about US$3.9 billion) to purchase local stocks and reinforce the stock market’s recovery.

Over a Decade of More Delistings Than Listings Awaits Solution

SGX faces persistent structural challenges. For more than a decade, annual delistings have outnumbered new listings, a sustained imbalance highlighting deeper issues with market appeal.

The newly launched initiatives aim to reverse this long-term trend. In addition to the partnership with Nasdaq, the exchange is actively sourcing corporate resources from China and Southeast Asia, striving to broaden the pool of listed companies. Pol de Win stated:

"Looking at the current corporate pipeline, many candidates are from higher-growth and new economy sectors."

In the race for IPOs among Asian exchanges, Singapore lags behind regional rivals such as India. Over the past year, Asia’s equity listing markets have flourished, but SGX has failed to fully benefit. This competitive landscape has pushed SGX to accelerate reforms, seeking to increase its attractiveness to high-growth companies via the Nasdaq partnership, while focusing on technology and new economy sectors with differentiated strategies to address regional competitive pressures.

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