Beijing Stock Exchange's resumption of inquiry-based issuance expectations are heating up. Who is the top favorite?

Over the past 3 years, more than 100 new listings have come onto the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ) (Beijing Stock Exchange), and all of them have completed their issuances through direct pricing. However, this situation may be about to change.

A reporter from the Daily Economic News has noticed that, recently, market sentiment around whether Zhongkeyi may use an off-the-balance-sheet inquiry (offline inquiry) issuance method for its new shares on the Beijing Stock Exchange has been running high. The reasons include the company’s outstanding growth in recent years and having homegrown, controllable themes and technologies.

Photo by Chen Mengyu from the Daily Economic News media database

Some observers believe that if the Beijing Stock Exchange continues to use a direct pricing issuance method, it may not be fair to those high-quality new shares. Since last year, the secondary-market share prices of certain relatively high-quality new shares listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange have remained at 10 times or more of the issue price for a long time, suggesting that the related pricing mechanism may not be entirely reasonable.

However, in interviews, some industry insiders also believe that resuming inquiry-based issuance after the Beijing Stock Exchange is a natural trend, but restarting inquiry at the current point in time may not be the best timing.

Regarding the market attention mentioned above, staff from Zhongkeyi responded that they are currently unable to disclose the specific issuance method; at the appropriate time, investors can pay attention to the relevant announcements.

Resuming inquiry-based issuance on the Beijing Stock Exchange “the first one” seems imminent?

Based on the reporter’s observations, in recent days, many views in the market have suggested that among the Beijing Stock Exchange’s newly listed/near-listing companies, Zhongkeyi may be able to land on the Beijing Stock Exchange through an inquiry-based issuance process. Some interviewed insiders at companies in the Beijing Stock Exchange industry hold similar views.

The prospectus shows that Zhongkeyi’s fundamentals have typical “hard-tech” characteristics. The company is a leading provider of core components for semiconductor manufacturing equipment in China, as well as a supplier of vacuum science instrument and equipment. Its innovation is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

First, the company is the domestic dry vacuum pump manufacturer with the largest shipment volume in the integrated circuit field, and it is also the only company that has achieved batch application in advanced process manufacturing, and the only one that covers domestic capabilities across clean/medium/harsh whole process conditions.

Second, in the dry vacuum pump sector, the company’s R&D and innovation has broken the long-standing monopoly held by companies in Europe, the U.S., and Japan: dry vacuum pump products meet production needs for advanced logic chip processes such as 14nm and storage processes such as 128-layer and above 3D NAND. They have already achieved large-scale applications across leading wafer fabrication companies in China.

Third, as an entity subordinate to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the company has three national-level R&D platforms, such as the National Engineering Research Center for Vacuum Technology Equipment.

In addition, the company’s operating performance has continued to grow in recent years. From 2021 to 2025, the net profit attributable to the parent rose from 65M yuan to 840M yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 90%. In the first quarter of 2026, the company’s performance grew significantly again.

It is worth noting that, judging from the IPO process of Zhongkeyi this time, some aspects appear different from usual: first, this IPO of the company chose the fourth listing standard of the Beijing Stock Exchange, which is also the first time since June 2023 that a new Beijing Stock Exchange issue has used the fourth set of standards (expected market value not less than 1.5 billion yuan, and cumulative R&D investment over the most recent two years not less than 50 million yuan). Second, on January 16 this year, the Beijing Stock Exchange Listing Committee held its 4th deliberation meeting in 2026 and approved Zhongkeyi’s listing application, and it was registered by the CSRC on February 10. Meanwhile, companies such as Saiying Electronics, which completed IPO registration at the same time, have recently already completed their issuance.

However, in the view of some industry insiders, these phenomena are merely basic facts, not sufficient conditions to restart inquiry-based issuance.

Liu Zimu, founder of Zimu Research, said that “because the Beijing Stock Exchange’s pricing issuance results in lower valuations, it may not be quite fair to high-quality companies.” “For example, in the case of last year’s Beijing Stock Exchange new shares that completed their IPOs, such as Xingtu Measurement & Control and Hengdong Optics, their secondary-market share prices have remained at more than 10 times the issue price for a long time after listing. This indicates that these companies may not be suited to pricing-based issuance and should use inquiry-based issuance.”

It is worth noting that, so far this year, the issuance pace of new shares on the Beijing Stock Exchange has accelerated noticeably compared with 2024 and 2025. According to data from Choice, in the first quarter of 2026, 16 new shares have already been listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange. Based on this pace, the number of new share issuances for the full year may be far higher than in 2024 and 2025, when the numbers of listed new shares were 23 and 26, respectively.

In response to the market buzz above, the reporter recently called Zhongkeyi. Company staff said they are unable to disclose the specific issuance method at this time; investors can watch for the relevant announcement when the time comes.

When inquiry-based issuance is restarted—the moment sparks heated debate among industry insiders

From publicly available information, after Yinuowei completed its IPO on the Beijing Stock Exchange in April 2023, there has been no change in the new-share pricing method on the Beijing Stock Exchange over the following 3 years.

At that time, Yinuowei used inquiry-based issuance in the underwriting stage of its IPO. Back then, there were also some disputes and rumors in the market regarding Yinuowei’s issuance.

Within the 3 years after Yinuowei’s IPO, more than 100 new shares have come onto the Beijing Stock Exchange, and all have adopted direct pricing issuance methods. The price-to-earnings ratio at issuance is usually set at around 15 times. Once the inquiry-based pricing method is restarted, the room for the issuance price-to-earnings ratio may be opened up.

However, in recent interviews, some industry insiders on the Beijing Stock Exchange have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward news that inquiry-based issuance is about to resume. Zhou Yun’nan, a senior commentator on the National SME/NEEQ market, said, “This is still only market talk at the moment; which company will restart inquiry-based issuance and when it will happen is still something we need to wait for the official announcement from the issuing company.”

A Beijing Stock Exchange analyst at a brokerage firm said, “It is an inevitable trend for the Beijing Stock Exchange to resume inquiry-based issuance after that, but restarting inquiry now may not be the optimal timing. First, the market for the Beijing Stock Exchange is currently in a downward phase. Second, the issuance pace for new shares on the Beijing Stock Exchange this year is faster. Also, Zhongkeyi is controversial: its non-recurring gains and losses are very large, and its gross margin is relatively low.”

In Zhongkeyi’s 2025 annual report, the company’s net profit attributable to the parent in 2025 reaches 840 million yuan, but it includes 740 million yuan in non-recurring gains and losses. This amount of non-recurring gains and losses of more than 700 million yuan mainly comes from fair value change gains and losses generated by the financial assets and financial liabilities it holds. Based on information disclosed in the prospectus, the company’s fair value change gains last year were as high as 752 million yuan, which mainly came from a surge in the share price of Topgen Technology, a listed company whose shares Zhongkeyi holds.

From the perspective of net profit attributable to the parent after deducting non-recurring items, Zhongkeyi’s performance compound annual growth rate from 2022 to 2025 is only 18.4%.

In addition, in recent years, the alignment between the company’s cash flows and profits has not been very strong. In part of the reporting periods, the company’s net cash flow generated from operating activities shows a significant difference from its net profit attributable to the parent, which to a certain extent reflects that the “quality and substance” of its profitability still needs to be improved.

In fact, inquiry-based issuance, pricing-based issuance, and auction-based issuance are all IPO pricing methods recognized by the Beijing Stock Exchange. However, since the Beijing Stock Exchange officially opened in November 2021, a total of only 5 new shares have used inquiry-based issuance, accounting for less than 3%. In this regard, some in the industry believe that the high proportion of direct pricing for Beijing Stock Exchange new shares is because direct pricing is more efficient and better fits the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises on the Beijing Stock Exchange.

In the view of the analysts above, “It’s not too late to restart inquiry-based issuance once these conditions are met: first, the market is in a steady phase; second, the pace of new-share issuance is not that fast; and last, the industry and track of the IPO companies are good with no major controversies.”

“You can’t do inquiry-based issuance just for the sake of doing inquiry. Some previously relatively high-quality companies were also (due to pricing-based issuance) issued at relatively lower issue prices, but they still rose strongly in the secondary market, and the companies didn’t have much grievance. If they truly do inquiry-based issuance, in the end the company might end up oversubscribed, but there will also be a risk of post-listing price falls.” He further pointed out, “The core is still to enhance the market’s appeal to investors. Just like when the Beijing Stock Exchange is open for subscription in the new share offerings, no one is invited specifically—because there is a money-making effect, freezing 700 billion yuan to 1 trillion yuan is the norm.”

Daily Economic News