HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – PPR SA’s refocusing is still a work in progress. The lack of growth at its legacy retailing business is affecting overall margins, and penalizing valuation. A flotation of part of the Asia-Pacific activities of its luxury arm, Gucci Group, in Hong Kong would boost its market capitalization, and create a vehicle to fund acquisitions in its fastest-growing region of operations.
It’s been quite a journey for the long-suffering shareholders of PCCW since the merger with Cable & Wireless HKT in 2000. Macquarie Bank’s and TPG Newbridge’s offers for its telecommunications business in 2006 were vetoed. Other attempts to sell the assets came to nothing in 2008, while a privatisation proposal by chairman Richard Li Tzar-kai in 2009 was ruled out by the Court of Appeal. And in April, the exchange rejected PCCW’s application to list a business trust – a type of transaction untried in Hong Kong.
Caixin magazine published last week an interesting survey, based on data compiled by Thomson Reuters, on IPOs by Chinese companies world-wide between January 2009 and June 2010, a 545-day period. read
I was interviewed this morning on CITIC Securities’ planned share sale in Hong Kong. I also discussed English soccer club Manchester United’s plans to sell stock in Singapore, and the market for initial public offerings in Asia.
I spoke in Hong Kong with anchor Rishaad Salamat on Bloomberg Television’s “On the Move Asia”. read
The past few weeks have seen widespread announcements of share buy-backs, as companies, often with net cash balances, take advantage of a depressed market to pick up cheap stock.
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – As the fortunes of the world’s top luxury goods companies increasingly hinge on growth in Asia, and with Prada SpA showing that Western companies can successfully tap the Hong Kong stock market, ECM bankers there have been actively pitching corporates from Europe and beyond to float in Asia.
The European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and the European Union Business Information Programme (EUBIP) hosted a breakfast session on 5 September at Club Lusitano, featuring members of the European Parliament and senior executives and leaders of the Hong Kong business community. I presented at the event on IPO opportunities in Hong Kong for European companies. read
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Claw-back rules for retail tranches in Hong Kong IPOs are a unique feature of that market. They bring an element of fairness between institutions and the general public; however, retail investors have increasingly shunned new issues and also now account for a smaller proportion of secondary trading, as compared with a few years ago. Now might perhaps be a good time to rethink those provisions, and to grant more flexibility to ECM bankers and issuers to allocate books of demand.
