00:00So far in the first couple of months of 2026, it looks pretty good. You're ahead of pace
00:04on IPOs as well as secondary listings. How does that in your crystal ball project for the rest
00:11of the year? So I have 25% of last year's fundraise done on the IPO front. And the same
00:16applies to follow-on offerings. We have already completed close to 25% of what we did last year.
00:25So too early to prejudge how the rest of the year is going to pan out. But as you know,
00:33we have a very solid pipeline as well. So hopefully the momentum can continue.
00:38The Financial Services Development Council basically recommending that you do need to
00:43broaden out if you want to. You need to attract more international listings. Where are we on that
00:49trajectory to broaden this out and not just be primarily a mainland Chinese company capital
00:55raising center? Right. We are making a lot of progress. Like I mentioned, even in 2025,
00:59we're beginning to see more interest coming in from international issuers. And this continues to be the
01:07case. I do hear this comment about, oh, you're too concentrated in China being a listing platform for
01:15Chinese companies. I feel that Chinese companies have been misunderstood because they're not that
01:21Chinese anymore. A lot of the so-called Chinese companies listing on our exchange, they're in fact,
01:28very global. Yeah. The go abroad theme is being represented in a number of these companies.
01:32Exactly. In fact, we did a sort of a rough calculation. Over half of the companies which listed
01:38on our exchange last year actually have over 50% of their revenue generated from outside of China.
01:46Right. So I heard someone coin a new phrase. They are called Chinese MNCs. So I guess it's more
01:53new ones than just to say, oh, you know, you are simply a platform for Chinese companies. We are more
01:58than that. I always ask you the question about the pipeline. How does the pipeline shaping up? I think
02:04your chairman talked about as many as 488 in the pipeline. By December, you had 339 queued up,
02:13ready to go. What's it look like right now? From a diversity point of view, I'm very, very excited.
02:18How so? Because it's been really concentrated in the new technology and AI has been the driver of this
02:24growth. Yeah. Well, AI is certainly still very much sought after by global investors. And as that being
02:30the case, you know, understandably, a good part of my pipeline will be attributed to technology company.
02:37But even within technology, it's not just one thing, right? We are talking about AI. We're talking
02:44about new energy. We are talking about biotechnology. So even within the technology basket, it's pretty
02:50diverse. How concerned are you that if there is a bubble sort of deflating in AI in the United States,
02:56lots of concerns about return on investments in the big AI companies in the United States,
03:02are you concerned that that will also spill over and have a negative dampening effect in Hong Kong,
03:06which has so far been pretty, you know, buoyant, obviously? Not only like a mini Macs, a language
03:15model, but also, of course, the hardware players. Yeah. I mean, there's certainly a lot of talk about this
03:20so-called AI bubble. But going back to my earlier point, I think I do take comfort to an extent
03:27from
03:28the fact that our pipeline and in fact, our listed company population is pretty diverse.
03:36You know, each market is a little different in terms of, you know, how much they have embedded AI
03:42into their listed companies population. But I would say that, you know, Hong Kong, we are showing a more
03:49diverse lay of land. If you think about the best performing sector, last year in Hong Kong, it's
03:56biotechnology. And so I think if we continue to work on this diversity, we certainly will be in a better
04:06position to ride through these ups and downs.
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