By Graham Hitchmough (Regional COO/Senior Consultant)
In the fast-evolving world of Asia’s capital markets, fortunes rise and fall. And so do listings. As Hong Kong’s IPO pipeline rallies and Singapore’s mainboard thins out, investors across the region are navigating geopolitical tensions, economic slowdowns, and shifting policy risk. But beyond the headlines about which exchange is hot or not, the truth remains that whether you’re preparing to list or planning to delist, brand strategy matters more than ever.
Going public is a chance to amplify your story and attract capital, and scale ambition, while going private can be a moment to refocus, realign and reclaim long-term control. In both scenarios, the brand should steer the narrative as a key strategic lever building belief in an IPO or preserving trust through a delisting. Because markets may move, but the brand must remain front and centre.
Hong Kong Rises, Singapore Reassesses
After several muted years, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) has roared back to life in recent months. In Q1 2025 alone, it hosted 17 IPOs raising over HK$18.7 billion – a 400% year-on-year increase. Blockbuster listings like CATL and an anticipated Shein debut have reaffirmed Hong Kong’s global fundraising credentials.
This contrasts sharply with mainland China’s IPO slump, where exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen are battling low investor confidence, economic headwinds and a shift in sentiment toward liquidity over new offerings. HKEX’s revival in part reflects rerouted momentum, with many Chinese companies are choosing Hong Kong as a more attractive, globally aligned gateway.
Beijing’s subtle push for tech, green energy and fast-growing global players to list closer to home is also playing a role. Fast-fashion giant Shein’s pivot from London to Hong Kong and dual listings from U.S.-traded Chinese firms suggest Hong Kong’s momentum is geopolitical as well as financial.
Meanwhile, across the South China Sea, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) paints a very different picture. In 2024, 20 companies delisted while just four listed. In 2025, SLB Development and Japfa have both moved to go private, citing low trading volumes, weak valuations, and greater strategic freedom off-market.
SGX has long wrestled with liquidity, limited institutional depth, and low analyst coverage – all factors that make it harder for mid-cap companies to achieve visibility and scale. With many listed entities being family-run or PE-backed, make them more likely to delist when conditions underwhelm. Despite current efforts to revitalise listings and improve investor access, the outlook for SGX remains cautious.
With Hong Kong surging ahead and Singapore seeking reinvention, this reflects not just a divergence in volume, but in strategic momentum. But whether the story is one of listing or a delisting – public ambition or private recalibration – the need for clear, purposeful brand leadership remains.
Brand Is Not Just There for the Good Times
IPOs are invariably framed as milestones of growth and legitimacy, while delistings are seen as withdrawal, or worse, failure. Both are more complex than they appear, and both demand strategic brand thinking.
Going public brings fresh scrutiny, expectation and new stakeholders. It demands a sharpened narrative, stronger governance, and clearer value communication. But going private – whether via M&A, buyout, or strategic repositioning – is no less strategic. It often signals the start of a new chapter, where a brand must rediscover its focus and direction without the afterglow of quarterly earnings. Either way, what’s at stake is more than just valuation.
When Going Private, Make Brand Your Compass
In Asia, a growing number of brands make the decision to delist, driven by a desire to regain control, and to retreat strategically into quieter, more agile waters. Many of SGX’s recent delistings have reflects recalibrations, driven by private equity timelines, family succession planning, or undervaluation. But when such companies fail to shape the narrative, the market fills the silence with pessimistic assumptions. To avoid this, brand must do three things quickly and well:
Control the Narrative:
Going will always raise questions from employees, customers, partners, and the media. The absence of a clear story creates a vacuum that negative speculation is only too ready to fill. So, delisting communications should move fast to frame the change as purposeful and positive. A reset.
Reaffirm Your Brand Purpose
Delisting can create space for businesses to return to fundamentals. When Panera Bread went private in 2017, it framed the move as a way to double down on customer experience and tech innovation – a narrative that paid off in subsequent product and loyalty growth.
Reinvest in the Internal Brand
Employees often feel the impact of a delisting most immediately and with the greatest trepidation. Internal brand culture plays a key role here, through town halls, refreshed values communication and greater leadership visibility and clarity to anchor and align the team. Brands that have delisted often fail to communicate the why, leaving employees, partners, and even loyal customers in the dark. This is a missed opportunity to align stakeholders on the story of the next chapter in the companies evolution.
IPOs and Platforming the Brand
If delisting is about control, IPOs are about credibility. For companies preparing to go public – whether in Hong Kong, Jakarta, or Tokyo – the brand imperative is different but equally urgent. Every IPO is different, but there are consistent value-adds that attention to the brand can deliver:
Tell a World-Class Story
Investors can trade as much in belief as the hard financials. A compelling equity story is part strategy, part storytelling, that should seek to define a brand’s role in contributing to (or shaping) a category, articulate the growth engine, and deliver confidence – all while reflecting the founder’s ambition and the company’s values in a compelling and credible way.
In 2024, Indonesian logistics company J&T Express successfully listed in Hong Kong. Its IPO documents and media campaign leaned heavily on its Southeast Asian leadership, e-commerce infrastructure, and technology backbone, all framed through a narrative of regional ambition that reflected an organisation coming of age and IPO-ready.
Upgrade the Brand Experience
As a public company, everything from the website to the annual report to the CEO’s media appearances becomes part of the brand. It’s no longer enough to be functional… You have to feel investable.
Yes, an IPO can usefully include a brand refresh to better reflect future focus and competitive differentiation, but it’s also about conveying maturity, trust, momentum, and a winning corporate sense of self. Visual identity, messaging architecture, thought leadership, and ESG reporting all must reflect a brand ready for primetime.
Engage a New Kind of Audience
Post-IPO, the stakeholder landscape shifts, with retail investors, analysts, regulators, ESG regulators all entering enter the frame. That means the brand needing to communicate across new channels and with new precision. Every utterance needs to be considered for audiences and impact, reflecting investor-grade clarity and public-grade simplicity.
List Bodly. Exit Gracefully. Lead with Brand
Whether preparing for a public debut or private renaissance, brand strategy must be foundational and guiding: shaping the narrative, rallying belief, and guiding stakeholder trust through periods of visibility or volatility.
This is especially critical in Asia today, where capital flows, investor sentiment, and strategic optics are in constant flux. HKEX’s resurgence will increasingly be driven as much by perception as by policy. And SGX’s wave of delistings risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy if brands don’t reframe their exits with clarity and conviction.
In both moments, whether stepping into the spotlight or retreating gracefully away from it, the brand is a strategic tool that should be used not just to survive structural change, but to define what comes next.