Here are conditions for Hong Kong to be the world’s IPO capital again

Weak investor confidence has to be overcome.

Bankers said Hong Kong has a chance at regaining its initial public offering crown since US$9 billion worth of deals are in the pipeline. They noted, however, that Hong Kong will have to overcome lingering negative sentiment as investors continue to see underperforming new listings.

Disillusionment with IPOs that failed to deliver and a high-profile deals that were later abandoned led to few new deals coming to market. Recent IPOs haven’t seem to confirm this pessimism.

Six of the nine companies that have listed in the city this year are trading below their IPO prices and underperforming the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Analysts said IPOs need to offer either high dividends, or high growth prospects with a reasonable valuation to convince investors shaken by the poor performance of new listings

Hong Kong was the world’s top venue for IPOs from 2009 to 2011 on account of large Chinese listings. It lost the title last year.

So far this year, Hong Kong has only US$1.02 billion in new listings and is in eighth place compared to market leader New York ith US$5.21 billion.