Can’t make you love me: SEA’s stock exchanges struggle to attract tech listings

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Here in Singapore, the local stock exchange, the Singapore Exchange (S68, SGX), has long tried to attract more tech listings.

For one, it has allowed special purpose acquisition companies to list on the bourse. It has also introduced rules to allow for dual-class shares, which are popular with founders of tech companies.

However, these measures have had limited success so far. Local champions like Grab (GRAB, NDAQ), Sea (SE, NYSE), and PropertyGuru (PGRU, NYSE) were all drawn by the siren song of the deep and liquid US capital markets.

Our neighbor Malaysia faces similar issues, as detailed by my colleague, Emmanuel, in this premium story on why the country’s firms are shunning local exchange Bursa Malaysia (BURSA, KLSE) for the Nasdaq (NDAQ, NDAQ).

Reasons include a lack of dual-class shares, low liquidity, and political risks. The latter is particularly salient, given that Malaysia has just concluded a general election where no one party was able to achieve a simple majority.

Long-time opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been sworn in as prime minister – the country’s fourth in three years.

Politics matters because Malaysia’s capital markets regulators are vulnerable to political interference, Emmanuel explains.

It remains to be seen whether a new government can bring political stability to Malaysia and whether that can create the conditions for a more active stock market.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has enjoyed relative political stability since the turmoil that followed the overthrowing of longtime ruler Suharto after the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

Unlike those of Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesia’s local tech stalwarts like GoTo (GOTO, IDX) and Bukalapak (BUKA, IDX) have listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

In our other featured piece, my colleague, Samreen, analyzes the most recent quarterly earnings from GoTo, which were released last week.

Like its other tech peers, GoTo is walking a tightrope: reducing costs (like incentives) while maintaining revenue growth.

Samreen assesses how the company is doing so far and how it is responding to competition from the likes of TikTok in ecommerce.

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