December 17, 2021: -Chinese companies listed on Wall Street will likely be cut off from U.S. capital markets in the coming three years as tensions amid Beijing and Washington persist, says one global asset management firm.

This month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finalized rules to implement a law that would permit the market regulator to ban foreign companies listed in the U.S. from trading if their auditors do not comply with requests for information from American regulators.

The law was made in 2020 after Chinese regulators did not accept the requests from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to inspect the audits of Chinese firms that list and trade in the U.S.

Given the current level of distrust amid the U.S. and Chinese governments, and with the bilateral relationship unlikely to improve anytime, there is “no way we are going to solve this in the coming few years,” Loevinger said.

“So the reality is, by 2024, most Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges are not going to be listed in the U.S. anymore. Most are going to gravitate back to Hong Kong or Shanghai,” he told CNBC.

Less than six months after going public, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi said it would start delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and plan to list in Hong Kong instead.

When a company delists from an exchange such as the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, it loses access to a broad pool of buyers, sellers, and intermediaries.

Chinese regulators were reportedly not satisfied with Didi’s decision to list in the U.S. without resolving outstanding cybersecurity concerns. According to reports, regulators told the firm’s executives to come up with a plan to delist from the U.S. because of the concerns around data leakage.

Beyond Didi, many of China’s top internet companies listed in the U.S. have already undertaken dual listings in Hong Kong. Some high-profile names include e-commerce giant Alibaba, its rival JD.com, search engine giant Baidu, gaming firm NetEase and social media giant Weibo.