SINGAPORE: Companies may soon be able to concurrently list on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Nasdaq, enabling companies to access capital across Asia and North America, announced the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday (Nov 19).
While the proposal for a dual listing bridge is subject to the completion of relevant regulatory processes, MAS will work with SGX to consult on the regulatory framework for a set of prospectus disclosure requirements comparable to that in the US, it said.
This means companies that are interested in an initial public offering (IPO) can use a single set of offering documents to list on both exchanges concurrently, cutting down on regulatory friction and cost, MAS said.
The cross-border listing framework will allow companies with a market capitalisation of S$2 billion (US$1.5 billion) and above to access global capital, investors and liquidity, said SGX and Nasdaq in a joint press release on Wednesday.
With the bridge in place, companies will be able to simultaneously list on SGX and the US exchange, and dual-listed shares registered in the US can be settled on SGX and vice versa.
This is one of the measures announced by the Equities Market Review Group, which was set up to give recommendations on how to strengthen the development of Singapore’s stock market.
MAS set up the review group in 2024 after SGX had its worst year for listings in 2023. The review group is led by Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat, who was Second Minister for Finance at the time. He is also the deputy chairman of MAS.
At a press conference on Wednesday concluding the review, Mr Chee said: “We are still very keen to attract companies to list on the SGX main block, just as Nasdaq will still be very keen to attract companies to list on Nasdaq.
“But we both see this as an additional option that some companies could find attractive, could find useful, and so this will help us to be able to enlarge the pie for both Nasdaq and SGX.”
For example, a company may be considered large by Singapore or Asian standards, but may end up “becoming smaller fish in a much bigger pond” if they were to list on Nasdaq on its own, he added.
With the draw of both US and Singapore liquidity pools, the new board will support efforts to attract more Asian issuers into the Singapore ecosystem, said Mr Chee.
The new board is envisaged to go live around mid-2026, he added.
