BBC (February 21)
“Chinese President Xi Jinping last year officially opened a bridge connecting Hong Kong to Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai—the world’s longest sea crossing bridge—as part of China’s plan to connect Greater Bay Area.” This ambitious plan seeks to spur economic development and “lays out strategic visions for the major cities in the region to become hubs in different sectors.” For example, “Hong Kong would strengthen its status as a finance and trade hub” while Shenzhen would be a tech hub and “Macau would focus on tourism.” An impressive plan, but “analysts question whether its lofty goals can be achieved.”
Tags: Ambitious, China, Finance, Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Tech hub, Trade, Xi, Zhuhai
Financial Times (May 20)
“Today, Hong Kong’s future as a global financial centre looks uncertain as the rival Shanghai Stock Exchange grows in size and credibility…. On the face of it, conditions at the HKEX look fine.” Revenues, profits and new listings were all up in 2017. “Yet Hong Kong was only third when it came to money raised in IPOs. Shanghai and New York were ahead by value, while Shanghai and Shenzhen surpassed the number of Hong Kong listings.”
Tags: HKEX, Hong Kong, IPOs, Listings, New York, Profits, Revenues, Rival, Shanghai, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen
IPE Real Assets (October Issue)
With the uncertainty of Brexit, “REITs have been trading at discounts to net asset value (NAV) of around 15% to 25%.” Faced with scant opportunities, some are electing to return money to unitholders through buybacks or special dividends. But there is clearly a “disconnect between sentiment in the public markets and private markets.” As REITs encounter “limited opportunities in the office space, institutional investors, particularly global investors, have made many high-profile acquisitions.” This includes “the UK’s largest-ever office deal…in July when Hong Kong’s Infinitus Property Investment bought the iconic ‘Walkie Talkie’ building at 20 Fenchurch Street for £1.28bn.”
Tags: Acquisitions, Brexit, Buybacks, Disconnect, Discounts, Dividends, Hong Kong, Infinitus, Institutional investors, NAV, REITs, Sentiment, UK, Uncertainty, Unitholders
Institutional Investor (March 29)
“The LSE and Deutsche Börse have tried to merge twice before, but both attempts ended in acrimony.” This time looks different, but it’s still far from certain. “U.S. predators are lurking, with Atlanta-headquartered Intercontinental Exchange saying it’s considering an offer for LSE; there’s also talk that Chicago-based CME Group and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing could enter the fray and spark a global bidding war.”
Tags: Bidding war, CME Group, Deutsche Börse, Hong Kong, Ice, LSE, Merge, Predators, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (June 18)
“Hong Kong democrats celebrated Thursday as the city’s legislature blocked passage of the Beijing-backed election law that sparked last year’s 75-day mass protests.” In response, Beijing’s tactic will probably risk “further alienating the people of Hong Kong from the mainland. The more Beijing paints its opponents as radicals and revolutionaries, the more it risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Tags: Beijing, Democrats, Election law, Hong Kong, Legislature, Mainland, Radicals, Revolutionaries
Bloomberg (April 10)
“Hong Kong is set to overtake Japan as the world’s third-largest stock market, spurred on by surging Chinese demand for shares in the former British colony.” At $5 trillion, Japan’s listed market cap is still a hair above Hong Kong’s $4.9 trillion, but “turnover in Hong Kong surpassed Japan on both Wednesday and Thursday.”
Financial Times (March 24)
In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission “will not be able to keep an open mind for very long” on whether to allow dual-class shares. Since 1987, Hong Kong has abided by the “current one-share-one-vote principle.” Citing the weakness of corporate governance in Hong Kong, some investors want to retain the current system, while others are calling for change to better compete with U.S. listings where dual-class shares are allowed.
Tags: Corporate governance, Dual-class shares, Hong Kong, Investors, Listings, Securities and Futures Commission, U.S., Vote
Wall Street Journal (October 20)
“On the eve of Tuesday’s talks with student leaders of the democracy movement, Hong Kong’s embattled Chief Executive has a message for the world: No compromises, and no apologies. Which means that Hong Kong’s upheavals are likely to continue.”
Tags: Apologies, Compromise, Democracy movement, Hong Kong, Leaders, Leung Chun-ying, Students, Upheavals
Bloomberg (October 6)
“Eleven days into the Umbrella Revolution, it’s clear Beijing won’t back down. President Xi Jinping won’t accede to the movement’s universal suffrage proposal or sacrifice Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to ease tensions.” Unless the students “face reality and plot an endgame,” they risk becoming “irritants” to average Hongkongers. If, however, they can win a few concessions, the students “can demonstrate that they gave Goliath a good fight and achieved something substantial.”
Tags: Beijing, Concessions, Endgame, Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, Risk, Students, Tensions, Umbrella Revolution, Universal suffrage, Xi Jinping
Los Angeles Times (October 3)
“Fear of China is not a Western machination.” China likes to blame the West for stirring up trouble, but this year’s “massive protests in Taipei and Hong Kong show that fear of China is most acute along its own borders…. It is the inhabitants of greater China—the ones whom Beijing hopes one day to incorporate into a unified motherland—who fear China the most. They are protesting Chinese encroachments in far greater numbers than either the Vietnamese or Japanese.”
