More than 500 companies are queuing up for IPOs in Hong Kong, and sponsors are in short supply.

The recovery of the Hong Kong IPO market continues, but it also brings new challenges to the industry. On April 13, Ye Zhiheng, Executive Director of the Intermediaries Department of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, said at the Greenwich Forum that the Hong Kong stock market is facing an unprecedented situation: the IPO market has indeed significantly warmed up, but the situation should not be blindly optimistic. The core issue lies in the "market's digestion capacity".

Currently, the number of IPO applications for Hong Kong stocks has surged, but the existing resources of sponsors are seriously insufficient. Data from Deloitte shows that currently over 560 enterprises are in the queue for listing (referring to projects that have submitted listing applications and are still valid). Tencent News' "First Line" has learned that there are currently about 440 sponsors in Hong Kong, including some small brokerage firm managers, and some sponsors are not very active.

In the process of listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the sponsor plays the role of a "gatekeeper", responsible for assisting the company in completing the listing procedures, ensuring to the regulatory authorities that the company seeking listing meets all listing conditions, and bearing direct legal responsibility for due diligence, including compliance with regulatory requirements and adequate disclosure, so that investors can make effective and well-grounded evaluations of the shares, financial status and profitability of the listing applicant.

In the situation where the number of sponsors was seriously insufficient, some securities companies had experienced a situation where one sponsor served as the main signatory for 10 IPO projects simultaneously.

Ye Zhiheng stated that since December 2025, he and his team have been aware of the market issues and have continuously issued warnings to the market, expressing the SFC's concerns about the quality of work of IPO sponsors. At the end of January this year, the SFC issued an "innovative" public notice to the market.

Public information shows that on January 30, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission publicly issued a letter, pointing out the problems existing among sponsors during the period of a sharp increase in the number of PO applications in 2025, including serious deficiencies in the preparation of some listing documents, possible misconduct by sponsors, and serious mismanagement of their resources, etc. At the same time, it was pointed out that each sponsor could represent a maximum of six enterprises. Tencent News' "First Line" has learned that since March this year, the Commission has further reduced the number of enterprises that a sponsor can represent to five.

Ye Zhiheng also said that he and his team are working with market participants to study how to strike a balance between the large number of IPO projects and the shortage of underwriters, to ensure that the Hong Kong stock market can effectively seize the opportunities brought by this wave of IPOs.

He pointed out on the spot that in the past few months, the CSRC, on the one hand, has tightened the screening standards for IPOs and further strengthened the review process; on the other hand, it has also been working to enhance policy coordination to maintain the positive momentum of the Hong Kong IPO market.

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