By Cong Mu

Foreign venture capitalists and private equity managers still prefer using initial public offerings (IPOs) on the country's growth enterprise board, ChiNext, to exit from their investments in start-up companies, a recent survey showed.

According to a foreign VC/ PE survey to be released in January by the China Venture Capital Association (CVCA), 92.9 percent of the respondents said that they will choose ChiNext as their primary market for IPO exits.

CVCA said in a press release Thursday that 82.4 percent of the respondents "are optimistic about domestic exit prospects as the exit environment is maturing and becoming more favorable in China."

The Beijing-based agency polled 39 firms from September to November, which either have yuan funds under management or are preparing to set one up.

The second batch of eight start-up companies is scheduled to debut on the GEB in Shenzhen today, making the total number of companies listed on the board 36 this year, lower than the expectation of 50 companies by the end of the year.

From September 17 to November 2, the success rate of IPO applications for the ChiNext was 93.5 percent, while from November 2 to December 15 it declined to 65.4 percent, the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper reported. One of the reasons was that the quality of the applicants was getting worse, the newspaper said.

"It took more than 20 years to prove the success of the NASDAQ market, and a few months now are too short to tell the future of ChiNext," said Zhao Xijun, deputy director of the School of Finance at the People's University of China, adding that regulators should be prudent in the early development of the market.

ChiNext, launched October 30, has been described as a NASDAQ-style growth enterprise board where investors expect to find Chinese start-ups with the promise of an early Intel or Microsoft.

The third batch of six companies to be listed next year on the GEB accepted stock subscriptions Thursday, with an average issuing price/earnings ratio of 78.11, the Economic Observer News reported.

Although it was lower than the average ratio of 83.59 for the second batch, it was still high compared with the average ratio of 56.7 for the initial 28 companies listed on the board.

Analysts expect the eight premiering companies to rise over 50 percent today but will correct to 80 percent later on, according to a report on 163. com.