NYSE sees U.S. companies seeking China listings

NYSE Euronext Inc's CEO Duncan Niederauer said an increasing number of U.S. companies want to list in Shanghai and the exchange is working with the Chinese authorities on the feasibility of doing so.

The prospect of a series of major American companies listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange represents a dramatic reversal of the flow that has seen many top Chinese companies list on U.S. and other foreign exchanges in the past 15 years.

"More and more of our companies are asking us to show them the way to considering a listing in Shanghai," Niederauer told the Reuters Exchanges and Trading Summit in New York on Monday.

He said that NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange and of the Euronext exchanges in Europe, is among the companies that "wouldn't mind listing there."

"It is the reverse of what we get from companies in Asia," he said, adding that Chinese companies came to the U.S. because their business was global and they had ambitions to gain big shareholders that were not all Chinese.

"So they thought a listing in the U.S. could help them tap a very big capital market and get closer to shareholders and customers with whom they want to have some mindshare. A lot of our companies are making the same argument to us in reverse, saying I'm already listed in the U.S. I would like to list in other places," Niederauer said.

Asked if a series of the biggest American companies could eventually list in Shanghai, he said: "I think it is possible. I think it depends on how easy or difficult it is to do that."

Niederauer said NYSE Euronext will be working with the regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the Shanghai Stock Exchange over the next 6-to-12 months to find out if such listings are feasible.

The listing mechanism could be a local "A" share or a Chinese depositary receipt, though the exact means will matter a lot to the companies concerned, he said. (Reuters)