Regional exchanges revamp rule books in battle for S-E Asia's listing hopefuls

Singapore

THE battle for initial public offerings (IPOs) is intensifying in Asia, where stock exchanges have either overhauled their rulebooks or are in the process of doing so to attract the next wave of new economy companies from South-east Asia and India to take the SPAC route to go public.

A SPAC, or special purpose acquisition vehicle, is a blank-cheque company that raises money in capital markets to acquire privately held targets, helping them skip lengthy and expensive IPO processes.