The Australian Stock Exchange is off to a flying start in 2018 with some 13 floats planned over the next three weeks.

Already this month hemp food seller Elixinol has racked up a 75 per cent stag profit on debut while Frontier Diamonds made a steady start to public life closing at 18c on Thursday compared to a 20c issue price.

There was “quite a bit of congestion” on the ASX after 15 companies listed in December, said Nick Motteram, chief of IPO investment platform OnMarket. (That compares to 17 in December 2016.)

The ASX’s listings compliance general manager David Barnett said there were no delays, however.

“We tend to work to the listing deadlines to the extent that we can. There is always a peak load leading into the end of the year and last year was no different,” Mr Barnett told Stockhead.

“The listing process is really a function of the applicant being able to meet their own deadlines.”

 

There are 18 upcoming floats listed as “TBA” on the ASX website — one of which dates back to 2015 and two others to 2016. These were typically due to difficulties in meeting the minimum subscription requirement of 300 unique shareholders, Mr Barnett said.

Who’s who in January floats

Based on ASX and company data, investors should soon see the addition of gold miners, tech firms and a Chinese medicine maker to the local bourse.

Jayride, a comparison booking website for transport to and from airports, has yet to join the ASX despite a January 5 due date.

The company was still on course for a January listing, Mr Motteram said.

Jayride only raised $1.5 million in order to fulfil the 300 shareholder listing requirement, as it was already awash with cash from a $7 million pre-IPO fund raising.

Pearl Global — which repurposes tyres — is finally listing after starting a reverse takeover process of Citation Resources in July.

Spokesman Andrew Flitton told Stockhead they’d run into a red tape in December but would be trading within  two weeks.

Base and precious metals explorer Tao Commodities, which started the process back in September and ran into a series of hurdles, confirmed to Stockhead on Thursday that they were on track for a mid-January listing.

Duxton Broadacre Farms follows a water spin-off from the same outfit, Duxton Capital, and Chinese medicine maker Rong Yu Pharma is here to establish its cholesterol and women’s health products lines in Australia.

Gold miners Black Cat Syndicate, Cygnus Gold, Accelerate Resources and Podium Minerals are still expected to list within weeks. So are people management software developer intelliHR Holdings, industrial vehicle parts maker China Track, accountancy JYG Australia and solar power provider Power Asia.

December floats and flops

Most December floats are trading higher than their issue prices. (See table below).

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December ASX floats.

But investors won’t be seeing Chinese telco Australia WeTouch soon or Oregon-based Third Party Technologies.

Both cancelled IPOs that were due to close in December — and are refunding investors.

Australia WeTouch chairman Peter French says he’s hoping to make a decision about the listing by the middle of the year.

“Ultimately it was combination of factors, which I won’t go into it because we’re still in the process of looking at what we’ll do next,” Mr French told Stockhead.

The fact that the company is China-based caused some issues, such as complications around money transfers from that country.

Third Party Technologies plans to come back to the ASX with a more attractive offer to investors before the end of March.

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