Blink and you will have missed it. The change in sentiment towards China over the past few weeks has been quite startling. China – long an obsession with all international financiers and business people – is particularly prone to the the vagaries of greed and fear that govern international capital markets. In the first half of the year, fear ruled. But now optimism and greed are firmly back in.

The agreement signed between China and its bilateral trading partners to enable China to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the main catalyst for the change in sentiment. Other significant announcements include:

• the potential eradication of the A and B share model;     
• the merger of Shandong Huaneng and Huaneng International Power;     
• the tacit acceptance of gradual convertibility of the renminbi;     
• moves to clear up the banking system; and     
• a resurgence in growth after seven years of decline.

All these factors have been grasped by the markets as undeniable proof that China is changing. The Shanghai B share market is up 55% since the start of the year.

What this means for the financing market is hard to gauge at this stage. But it looks likely that Chinese companies coming to market in the second half of the year will have a much easier ride than their counterparts that chose to raise money early in the year.

When China National Offshore Oil Company (Cnooc) pulled its IPO at the end of last year, investor sentiment towards China appeared to be at rock bottom. The controversial Petrochina deal caused global controversy. It seemed that anyone with even the slightest gripe against the Chinese authorities used the Petrochina IPO as their vehicle of protest.

Then there was the furore over the irregular corporate structures that Chinese internet companies had to adopt to allow foreign money into the company while maintaining mainland ownership. Companies such as Sina.com, Sohu.com and Netease.com all had a hard time explaining their rather bastardized corporate structures to international investors.

The ambivalence of foreign investors and financiers towards China was perhaps best demonstrated by the China Unicom deal. First, the Chinese government mandated that all the China-China-Foreign joint venture contracts had to be unravelled. This predictably caused a hail of protests with many of the jilted foreign telecom companies vowing never to do business in China again. Two months later, nearly all of them subscribed to one of the largest and most successful IPOs this region has ever seen.

So with this change in sentiment, we should see an acceleration of Chinese listings. The next big one will be Sinopec, which has already confidentially filed with the SEC for a deal that could be as large as $5 billion. Following that will be a whole host of potential listing candidates that are listed below. With China Mobile in the wings looking to do another mammoth secondary financing, there will be no shortage of demand for international money. With international sentiment as it is, that demand could be matched by investor appetite for China again.

China Equity New Issue Pipeline