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GEB gets ready for fast rollout

By Bi Xiaoning (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-05 07:54

The long-awaited Growth Enterprise Board (GEB) can be expected soon as preparation work is basically complete, an official with China's securities regulator said.

Related readings:  Second market readies for public offers  Mainland firms shy away from HK floats  Regulator to roll out GEB norms

Ouyang Zehua, vice-director of the market supervision department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), said: "The CSRC began to solicit opinions on GEB in March 2008. Now the modification works for the draft have been finished and the preparation works on the technical system and education on investors are also ready."

According to the draft, companies that go public on GEB are required to realize no less than 100 million yuan of net profits in the past two years, or their net income and revenue in the previous year must be over 5 million yuan and 50 million yuan respectively, with over 30 percent year-on-year growth rate in the past two years.

"The threshold for companies listed on GEB is much higher than the counterparts in overseas markets, as we target to control the risks at the initial stage," said Ouyang.

The CSRC has studied the second board in Britain, Japan and South Korea and considered the actual situation of China's capital market.

"A company's developing period can be divided into three phases, initial, growing and mature. The GEB targets the companies in the later period of growing phase, near to mature stage," said Ouyang.

Ouyang said that "quite a number" of small- and medium-sized enterprises are qualified to go public on the GEB.

Hou Wailin, head of the Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau, said about 90 companies in the province are ready to be listed on the GEB.

"Several companies on the list are affected much in the financial crisis, most companies are still qualified now," said Hou.