The IPO delay could throw a spanner into YMTC’s expansion plans. The decision comes as Beijing tightens listing approvals for its big-tech in a struggling stock market.
China’s flagship NAND memory chipmaker Yangtze MemoryTechnologies Co. (YMTC) has put its Shanghai IPO on hold due to “various factors”, according to a memo that the company sent to its staff. The delay could last several months according to sources in the company. The decision comes as Beijing tightens listing approvals for its big-tech in a struggling stock market.
YMTC’s parent, CCSH corporation filed for its IPO on the Nasdaq-style STAR market in Shanghai in August to raise about 33 billion yuan ($4.9 billion), in what was expected to be Asia’s second largest equity offering this year, after CXMT.
The IPO delay could throw a spanner into YMTC’s expansion plans. The company emerged as China’s largest NAND memory maker and gained a lot of market share in China from global suppliers like SK hynix and samsung, due to global memory chip shortage.
The delay in listing also comes in the backdrop of Chinese authorities’ move to restrict IPOs in a weakened market. Recently the China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has given informal guidance to investment bankers to pause IPOs and suspend share sales by existing shareholders till the markets recover.
Chinese authorities also tried to restrict humanoid robot firms’ IPOs after Unitree’s IPO was subscribed five-fold on its debut before seeing some correction. The latest move by CSRC will slow down the turbo-charged fundraising in AI and chip sectors, even as Beijing pushes for self-reliance in the same sectors amidst the tech-rivalry with the US.
China’s large language model developers like DeepSeek and Moonshot are planning to list onshore and in Hong Kong. Baidu’s chip unit kunlunxin had filed for a Hong Kong IPO in January. Meanwhile, globally many data centre IPOs have pulled back their listings till the investors get a sense of returns on highly valued AI offerings.
“This environment poses new challenges for companies planning to go public in 2027,” said Kenny Ng, a strategist at China Everbright Securities International in Hong Kong. These companies working on cutting-edge technologies require heavy flow of funds for researching and developing better products. A pause in their IPO will also affect the exit of venture capitalists, who initially invested in these companies.
