First fintech to list on Singapore bourse Ayondo debuts at S$0.24

GLOBAL fintech group Ayondo on Monday made its debut on the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) Catalist board at S$0.24 apiece - marking the first fintech company to be listed on the Singapore bourse.

This price came in two Singapore cents, or 7.7 per cent lower than its initial public offering (IPO) price of S$0.26.

As at 11.05am on Monday, the counter was trading at S$0.265 apiece. Some 8.8 million shares changed hands.

Ayondo offers social trading services and brokerage services to both business to consumer (B2C) and B2B (business to business) clients through two proprietary platforms: WeTrade and Tradehub.

According to SGX's statement, TradeHub is for self-directed trading, while WeTrade is for social trading, where traders can view one another's portfolios, trading performance, as well as share and follow one another's investment strategies on a real-time basis.

Among other things, the group offers contract for differences (CFD) and spread bet trading across various markets and financial products such as forex, treasuries, cryptocurrencies and shares. Educational and casual trading services will also be offered by its partners via mobile applications.

Said SGX's head of equity capital market (SME) and head of capital market development, Mohamed Nasser Ismail: "We are excited to welcome Ayondo Limited, one of the fintech pioneers in Europe that has leveraged opportunities in emerging digital technologies and changing trends in the financial industry.

"We look forward to supporting the company as it expands its international reach and taps the huge potential of social trading in this age of digital revolution and amid continued growth in online and mobile transactions."

BT on Saturday reported that the loss-making social trading broker's IPO drew roughly four-and-a-half times as many applications as there were shares in the public tranche.

There were 875 valid applications for about 40.36 million offer shares, compared with the 8.9 million actually available. In the end, 561 applicants succeeded in snagging shares.

With another 71.87 million placement shares allotted to 270 placees, the invitation was subscribed by about 1.3 times in all.

Singapore private equity investor Luminor Capital has been the group's largest shareholder since 2014.

The fintech firm made a stab at a listing last year through a proposed S$158 million reverse takeover with developer Starland Holdings, but that fell through after conditions were not met or waived by the long-stop date.

Ayondo was listed at a market cap of about S$130 million, and joins 74 other tech companies listed on the SGX. Taken together, these firms have a market cap of over S$84 billion.

The total number of companies listed on Catalist is 202, with a combined market cap of over S$13 billion, the SGX said.