Size matters – but not too much

Surprise, surprise. Riyadh appears to have lost its bet to successfully bring to market a US$100 billion-plus IPO for Saudi Aramco. read

ECM is very jialat right now

Just as Hong Kong has taken over from Japan as the second largest stock exchange in Asia (behind Shanghai), and as larger and better performing IPOs show renewed confidence on the part of investors in the city, Singapore’s primary markets have quietly (and rather worryingly) gone off the grid.

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Flying high in the year of the pig

HKEX just released its strategic plan for the next three years, painting itself as the “global markets leader in the Asian time zone”. read

Kill or cure

At the end of last month, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange published a consultation paper seeking feedback on a proposed suspension requirement for listed companies with a “disclaimer or adverse audit opinion on their financial statements”. read

The joke is on you

As the introduction of weighted voting rights (WVR) and pre-revenue companies’ listings get nearer in Hong Kong, I see an opportune time for a quick take on the types of companies that the exchange — which is probably the most volatile of the world’s major primary markets — readily allows.

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The end of the affair

Last week, Hong Kong’s plans to play host to IPOs of international behemoths such as Saudi Aramco took a serious hit, amid news that both Glencore and Tapestry, the owner of luxury fashion brand Coach, would delist from the local exchange. read

The East is Red

Over the summer, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX) released a fascinating, but little noticed, survey detailing cash trading on its two listing platforms, the Main Board and GEM. The survey also included southbound trading undertaken through the Shanghai-Hong Kong and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect schemes, launched in 2014 and December 2016, respectively.  read

Heaven can wait

Cornerstone summer party

Readers of this column will be familiar with my occasional ranting about Hong Kong’s cornerstone investor regime, and in particular the doltish six-month lock-up rule which the Singapore Exchange, for one, never saw fit to introduce, and which even Bursa Malaysia ended up ditching, after having initially restricted it to subscriptions representing 5% or more of a company’s share capital. read

Doing away with Hong Kong’s free float rule

On July 27, the HKEx announced that “it was minded to exercise its power” to cancel the listing of China Oriental Group within a period of six months, due to the company’s insufficient public float. This, however, was only the latest step in a rather long saga, which illustrates to a tee not only that the exchange’s minimum free float rule actually serves little purpose, but also how incredibly slowly the regulators can move to make decisions in the city, thereby hurting both institutional and retail investors. read