In search of the elusive unicorn for SGX’s Global Listing Board
Will DayOne’s Nasdaq IPO eventually sit on the GLB? The fast track is not an easy one
[SINGAPORE] First announced in November 2025, the Global Listing Board (GLB) partnership between the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Nasdaq was set up to create the “best of both worlds” for Asian tech unicorns and high-growth companies.
The hypothesis of bridging Asia’s most international exchange with its long-time technology partner across the Pacific made sense on paper.
Pitched as a path to the high valuations and deep institutional liquidity of the US markets, a GLB listing would also maintain local brand familiarity, customer base and regional trading volumes from Asian-based investors.
After all, the back-office pipes between the two exchanges’ share depositories have existed for years, allowing for buying and selling East and West through a share transfer process.
Practically, this could already enable dual or secondary listings of stocks like Sea or Grab, Singapore-founded giants listed in the US.
Shares or American depository receipts would be fully fungible should Sea and Grab wish to take up an additional (light touch) regulatory burden in Singapore, having chosen the Wild West for their public listing.
They never did. Instead, we now have Singapore depository receipts for retail investors to trade the economic rights during our Singapore market day.
Since their initial public offerings, however, the fortunes of their respective stock prices have been mixed; Sea multiplying manifold and Grab struggling since day one post its de-spac (special purpose acquisition company) process.
That said, significant capital was raised to sustain these high-growth businesses, and in the case of Sea, several times over.
The GLB does practically eliminate the traditional dual-listing pains of navigating two separate regulatory systems and costs of primary listing, and post-listing compliance and corporate governance.
On Jun 29, after an extensive public consultation earlier in the year, Singapore’s Securities and Futures Act was amended, allowing a single disclosure document anchored on US disclosure rules.
Once a unicorn satisfies the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Nasdaq Global Select Market Rules, the Singapore Exchange Regulation has a streamlined review process to accept the same parameters. Hallelujah!
Necessary but not sufficient?
Pundits have been quick to judge that it has been all quiet on the bridge so far.
Practically speaking, it takes six to nine months to get an IPO going (even in the US). So it not only needs to take time to prep, but also many things can change in the process.
For example, Atome, a potential candidate, took the bird in hand rather than brave the public markets, GLB or not.
In September, the buy-now-pay-later player took a US$1.49 billion cash offer from Grab for a 60 per cent stake, with a structured earn-out that could price the company from a floor of US$2 billion to a cap of US$4.5 billion.
The regulatory and compliance requirements may have been simplified. But practical commercial challenges remain in any attempt to do a simultaneous dual listing, beyond just the paperwork.
In running a transaction, bankers puppet the key strings. Their assessment of the market timing and window is anchored on their ability to raise the funds (which is the whole purpose of listing), and potentially some hard underwriting risk cover.
Even with simplified processes, an additional day to file can be deemed existential enough to kill a deal.
A fundraising in the East and West, even on the GLB bridge, creates a pricing problem. Equity fundraising fees are significantly higher in the US than in Singapore: 4 to 7 per cent versus 2 to 4 per cent.
All other things being equal, it may be economically rational for a bank to guide an IPO aspirant westwards, even if it is represented in both markets.
Assuming the company mandates a dual process, bankers without US presence will be more prepared to participate in the portion allocated in Singapore.
A justifiable constraint of the GLB is the not-unreasonable requirement to have 15 per cent of the total fundraising in Singapore, to provide a ready pool of investor liquidity here. A working liquid bridge has to be a two-way one. But that presents another conundrum.
Take DayOne Data Centers, which on Tuesday (Oct 6) filed on the Nasdaq alone, instead of submitting a concurrent GLB listing.
It was the much-hoped-for first test-drive across the bridge. And what a drive it would be. At US$20 billion, DayOne is a decacorn, not just a unicorn, in a sector dazzled with artificial intelligence dreams.
Sure, it is easier for DayOne to focus on one market for fundraising than two, even though its global headquarters is in Singapore. It is also simpler to coordinate the cacophony of lawyers, professionals and bankers, including public relations and communications.
These issues are not insurmountable for a larger company with arguably more resources to try for the best of both worlds.
Even for DayOne’s US$5 billion fundraising, a GLB listing would require S$750 million raised from local investors to meet the 15 per cent minimum rule. And that, for now, may be a bridge too far.
The last IPOs of this size in Singapore were for real estate investment trusts (Reits) – albeit also with data centres.
One still hopes that a future secondary listing after the initial Nasdaq IPO process will still be on the cards for the SGX, even if it does not sit on the GLB.
Taking a more circumspect view on market appetite, 15 per cent of a potential US$500 million raise for used-car marketplace Carro, or US$75 million, seems more realistic at present, based on what our local market has been able to stomach for primary fundraising these past 12 months.
Leaving aside Reits, UltraGreen.ai, Foundation Healthcare and JustCo are the handful to have crossed this threshold so far.
First things first
Perhaps that explains why batch three of the Equity Market Development Programme, which went to five new fund managers, added more international asset managers to the first nine appointed earlier, and mostly of the same ilk versus more local small and mid-cap (SMID) specialist fund managers.
This is so that we can enable larger IPOs, perhaps.
We may eventually get to the decacorn, after we land our first elusive unicorn. One way to get there, perhaps, is to first get our own SMID IPOs well-supported on this side of the bridge, then let confidence build on itself.
The writer is chairman of Shan De Advisors. He retired in 2021 from SGX, where he was a senior managing director.
