IPO Newsletter Issue 4/2023

Southeast Asia's positive growth outlook is making the region an investor favourite. In the first half of 2023, Southeast Asia's IPO capital market achieved 85 IPOs, with US$3.3 billion in IPO proceeds raised, a 16% increase in the number of new IPOs and a 5% increase in IPO amount raised compared to the first half of 2022. Thailand's IPO market had a slower start to 2023 than the previous year, contributing 16% of the total proportion in Southeast Asia of the IPO amount raised during the first six months.

In 2024, The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") of Thailand will require companies applying for IPO filing to submit their annual financial statements for the last 3-years and the last quarterly financial statements. The financial statements must be prepared under the financial reporting standards and audited or reviewed (in the case of quarterly financial statements) by a certified public accountant approved by the SEC.

In light of new requirements, in this issue, we explore a significant challenge companies face when preparing for their IPO, which is surrounding data preparation. All parties, including shareholders, analysts and regulators, require access to information for review and engagement.

Preparing and transforming financial data for analysis is highly manual and time-consuming. There are processes you can build today to improve your financial data validation and preparation. These processes will help your team reduce risk by automating manual processes to find errors faster, and they will help drive enterprisewide decision-making linking tax, statutory accounting, and financial planning to forecasts and models spanning commercial, supply chain, operations, talent, and beyond.

We hope you will find this newsletter an insightful read, and we look forward to connecting and discussing some of these issues in greater detail with you. In the meantime, don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Featured highlights

It’s time to get serious about data

It seems fundamental: Of course, data is vital. No finance leader would say differently—until you ask about other priorities. There’s cost management and performance. Growth. Talent. Compliance. And on goes the list. But can you master those areas if you don’t have your data under control? No matter what people say or do, data really is central. Do you treat it that way? It’s time for CFOs to get serious about data.

Reporting in a digital

Explore how digital tools like automation, advanced analytics, and machine learning are making both financial and internal management reporting faster, more insightful, and less costly—and the lessons learned along the way.