Strategic springboard or slippery slope: Struggling mainboard-listed Fu Yu wants to move to Catalist

[SINGAPORE] Some market watchers may have been surprised when Fu Yu Corporation said on Aug 28 that it is seeking to transfer its listing from the mainboard of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) to Catalist.

Many companies that made the same shift over the past decade did so largely to escape the dreaded SGX watch list for mainboard issuers that reported persistent losses and were unable to maintain market caps of at least S$40 million, or that failed to sustain a minimum trading price (MTP) of S$0.20 for their shares.

However, SGX scrapped the MTP rule in 2020 as alternative measures to address market manipulation were introduced. It ditched the financial criteria for the watch list last year as part of a shift towards a more disclosure-based regulatory regime.