Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), China's largest maker of NAND memory, has paused its plans to go public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, according to Reuters. The decision was communicated in an internal company memo seen by the news agency and confirmed by people with knowledge of the matter.
Parent company CCSH Corporation filed for the IPO in August on the STAR Market, the Shanghai exchange's segment for technology companies, aiming to raise 33 billion yuan, about $4.9 billion. It would have been Asia's second-largest equity offering this year.
The company had planned to start the strategic placement of shares between late October and early November, but the process was suspended due to "various factors", according to the memo, which did not elaborate. Two sources told Reuters the delay could last several months and that the stock market debut is now likely in the first half of 2027, depending on market conditions.
The backdrop is weakness in China's equity market and a tougher regulator: according to four sources heard by Reuters, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has informally guided banks to slow down IPOs by AI and chip companies. The Financial Times also reported that the regulator asked banks to pause new IPOs and suspended large share sales by existing shareholders until the market recovers.
The numbers help explain the brake: the CSI300 index fell 8.5% in October, its worst month in more than a decade, and the STAR50, which tracks Shanghai-listed chip and AI companies, is down 40% from its July peak. YMTC did not respond to Reuters' request for comment, and the CSRC did not comment either. The IPO application remains at the "inquiry" stage on the Shanghai Stock Exchange website.
The delay could disrupt YMTC's capacity-expansion plans. The company makes 3D NAND memory chips using its own Xtacking architecture and is a central piece of China's semiconductor self-sufficiency strategy. According to Counterpoint Research, it accounted for 14% of global NAND bit shipments in the second quarter of 2026, ranking third behind Samsung and SK Hynix.
Where the IPO money would go
Of the planned 33 billion yuan total, 20.8 billion would go to upgrading production lines and 12.2 billion to research and development, according to the prospectus filed by CCSH in August with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. That expansion is exactly what the delay could jeopardise, at a time when demand for memory is growing with the artificial intelligence boom.
Image credit: assembly of an SSD, via Wikipedia (author: TR), CC BY-SA 3.0 licence. Illustrative image of NAND flash memory.
Fontes
- Reuters via SRN News — Exclusive: Chipmaker YMTC's IPO on hold as China tightens share sale approvals
- Reuters via 1027 WBOW — Exclusive: Chinese chipmaker YMTC puts IPO on hold
- Brand Icon Image — China's YMTC Puts $4.9bn Shanghai IPO on Hold
- Wikipédia — Yangtze Memory Technologies
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checking public posts on X and sources on the internet. We recommend consulting the original sources to confirm the information.
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