Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
I want to thank Kenneth and Dennis for inviting me to speak this afternoon. As Executive Director of the SFC’s Intermediaries Division, I am responsible for the supervision of sponsors. Also with us today from the SFC is Megan Tang, who is chiefly responsible for listing policy, and Lisa Chen, who is responsible for enforcement action against IPO sponsors and disciplinary matters. They will be speaking on the panels after the coffee break. So as you can see, you’re going to hear from three regulators who matter a lot to IPO sponsors.
One of the SFC’s top priorities is maintaining and improving the quality of our market, and this is reflected in the size of the SFC’s representation here today. Our presence here is also an acknowledgement that sponsors act as key gatekeepers to ensure market quality. At the heart of this lies the expectation that sponsors conduct sufficient due diligence to properly understand and assess the companies seeking to be listed. The health of any stock market depends on the confidence that investors have in the reliability of the information provided to them. This begins when a company first joins the market through an IPO and continues thereafter through periodic updates.
An IPO is the culmination of an intensive and collaborative process. Company directors perform a key role and take primary responsibility for the information in the listing document, but the process also involves accountants, lawyers, valuers and other experts as well as underwriters, sponsors and the regulators.
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