Initial Public Offerings 2018: Cayman Islands

Introduction

The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange ("CSX") was founded in 1996. The CSX has listed more than 4,000 securities and maintains a market capitalisation of more than US$190 billion. However, as the CSX generally specialises in the listing of corporate and specialist debt securities and investment funds, rather than traditional equity listings (equity listings account for only five of the listings on the CSX), in this chapter we primarily focus on the popularity of Cayman Islands companies as listing vehicles on international stock exchanges including the New York Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Since the 1990s, the Cayman Islands has been a popular jurisdiction for the incorporation of issuers to be listed on international stock exchanges. As the Cayman Islands continues to develop its legal and regulatory regime to be at the forefront of international standards, we anticipate that the use of Cayman Islands