SAO PAULO Latin American companies could replace some of the Chinese companies' initial public offerings IPOs that have disappeared from western markets this year, a senior Nasdaq executive said.
Chinese companies listed in the United States have been investigated by regulators in Beijing and Washington, and a dispute over access to audit papers could lead to Chinese companies being delisted from U.S. exchanges.
There has been no Chinese listings in the United States this year, down from 29 last year. Four Latin American companies were listed last year, down from 20 last year, and 11 companies from countries in Southeast Asia, compared to 19 last year.
Bob McCooey, Nasdaq's Global Head of Capital Markets, was in Sao Paulo last week to discuss potential listings with Brazilian companies and attended an investment event hosted by the digital broker XP Inc.
The latest Latam listing was Semantix, a tech company listed on Nasdaq last week in a business combination with SPAC Alpha Capital. Inter Co moved from a Brazilian listing to Nasdaq in June.
Coming to Sao Paulo in 2022 reminded me a lot of my trips to China in 2008. Bob McCooey said in an interview with Reuters that the tech ecosystem is growing and there are a lot of new interesting companies.
In addition to the experienced venture capital firms, Latin America is beginning to see serial entrepreneurs invest the proceeds from selling their first companies.
In the last five years, there were 37 Latin American listings and 159 Chinese listings in Nasdaq.