No word yet on first post-moratorium IPO

Which enterprise will get to issue the first IPO after the top securities regulator's five-month moratorium on such deals? The market is still waiting to find out.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission will inspect 30 enterprises randomly picked from the IPO waiting list during the coming two months.

A CSRC spokesman said 110 pre-IPO companies have gotten permission to submit their financial reports.

This may signal that the IPO reopening will be postponed until the end of the second quarter, analysts said.

IPO approvals stopped at the end of December, when more than 800 enterprises had applied to go public. The first stage was self-examination by the intermediaries, including underwriters, financial companies and law firms.

So far, CSRC officials are still showing caution and trying to evade releasing any signals about a time frame to relaunch IPOs.

The top regulator's "policy haze" may either test the market's patience or drag the feeble stock index down further, said Zhu Mingyuan, assistant director of the Orient Futures Research Institution.

Last week, the Securities Association of China randomly selected 30 enterprises, about 5 percent of the IPO-waiting companies that have handed in self-inspection reports, to take in the CSRC special financial check procedure.

Among those, seven are applying for IPOs on the main board on the Shanghai Stock Exchange; 13 are for the small and medium-sized enterprises in Shenzhen; and 10 are for the Chinese Nasdaq-style board, ChiNext.

"Of course, every enterprise or its sponsor institution expected to be selected this time in the 'Lucky 30' will face more strict financial checks," said an analyst from Guotai Junan Securities Co Ltd who declined to be named.

The CSRC spokesman said that once problems in the financial reports are discovered, the commission will release the examination results and deliver punishment.

"The inspection campaign aims to push intermediaries to improve financial information quality and protect investors' interests," the CSRC official said.

Through Wednesday, 167 enterprises had withdrawn their IPO applications and 614 are still in contention, about 25 percent less than at the beginning of the financial inspections.

Companies that gave up on their IPOs did so mainly because of their shrinking profits, analysts said.

Through Sunday, 182 public companies from the ChiNext board released the annual reports for 2012, and 38.5 percent showed a net profit decline, the Wind Information reported.

According to the CSRC, 82 enterprises have already passed the review from the IPO issuance and examination commission, waiting for final permission from the top regulator.

Issuing new shares is expected to pull down the stock index in the short term, especially when the bullish market has not yet emerged, said Mao Changqing, chief strategies analyst from Citic Securities Co Ltd.

"Restarting IPO approvals in April or May is not the most significant issue. The key is to accelerate the reform of the whole IPO issuance system, which will bring long-term influence to the A-share market," said Mao.

Since Xiao Gang, the new CSRC chairman, took the post, no reform policies have been released, sparking market speculation about whether market-oriented reform will continue.