Monday 8th October 2012
Dear Reader,
NEW ARTICLE
Xpress
excess
Here's a horror story of excessive pay at Xpress
Group (0185), a company you've probably never heard of, but pay attention,
because it could just as easily happen to yours, as the Listing Rules do not
prevent it. In the last 15 years, the controlling family have received HK$493m
in pay as directors, while the loss attributable to shareholders was $248m.
(8-Oct-2012)
RECENTLY ON WEBB-SITE
HK land for
HK xenophobes
We explain why the proposed "HK land for HK
people" scheme, while superficially appealing to voters, won't work, and we again propose measures to make the housing and
tax system simpler and fairer, including elimination of stamp duty and mortgage
interest deductions, and land lease reform to open the market and lower the
premiums on new leases. (6-Sep-2012)
Webb-site Total Returns launched
Our new system allows
investors, journalists and academics to know what the total return on investment
in any HK-listed stock has been in the last 18 years, and to produce comparisons
and rankings over any period. Say goodbye to bare price charts, where the
dividends and other distributions belong to the fairies. We demonstrate with a
review of 15-year returns in the HKSAR. (6-Aug-2012)
IN OTHER NEWS
SEHK clings to "suitability" test
SEHK,
28-Sep-2012
"Where a company's business model is believed [by the
Exchange] to be unsustainable, the Exchange will consider it unsuitable for
listing". Our view: surely the desirability of an investment is for the market
to decide. Given full disclosure, nobody has to buy the shares if they don't
want to. SEHK can't quite drag itself away from the merit-based approach to
listing approvals, despite its claim to be a disclosure-based market. Should the
hundreds of listed loss-making companies be delisted just because they don't
look sustainable?
Webb
on "Backchat" re poverty line
RTHK,
28-Sep-2012
PECS Register monthly update Part 1.Part
2
HK Government, 28-Sep-2012
Eagle Nice (2368): Chairman was arrested by ICAC and later released
unconditionally from bail
Company
announcement, 26-Sep-2012
Comment: in our view, once the ICAC had
discharged the Chairman from bail on 18-May-2012, the stock should have been
allowed to resume trading. Investors have been deprived of a market for their
shares for over 4 months since then. By contrast, the stock of Sun Hung Kai
Properties has remained traded throughout the period of the Kwok brothers'
arrest and subsequent charges.
Sino Prosper (0766): investors remove Chairman/CEO & ED at AGM, board
immediately reappoints them
Company
announcement, 24-Sep-2012
Investors also vetoed the general issue
mandate, preventing the board from diluting them.
Pass it on!
This free newsletter goes to over 20,000 practitioners, issuers,
regulators and investors in Hong Kong's markets. If you enjoy Webb-site, then please
invite a friend to find out
what they are missing and subscribe! Visit our archives, and do your
homework before you invest.
Remember that, apart from our occasional articles, you can follow our daily updates on HK events via RSS, Twitter, or Facebook.
Copyright notice