Only one in five companies in China’s lengthening line of those waiting to float come from provinces that benefit from a reform of the initial public offering system aimed at helping impoverished counties.
Proposals published by the China Securities Regulatory Commission allow companies registered in 592 impoverished regions nationwide to skip the 836-long list of groups currently waiting for an IPO in Shanghai or Shenzhen.
The choice of counties on the list appears more in line with efforts to redistribute wealth rather than ease the IPO bottleneck. For example, Yunnan province, home to only six companies waiting to go public, has 73 of the impoverished counties — the highest for any province — targeted by the CSRC plan.