Wednesday 26th June 2013

Dear Reader,

Now that our demanding house guest has flown off to Moscow, we can get back to work. He was a real pain, always going through our drawers and leaving cryptic messages on the fridge. But in return for our hospitality and a few pizzas, he has helpfully installed taps on all the HK Government network switches so that we can suck their metadata into Webb-site Who's Who, and now that we know about PRISM, we don't have to worry about keeping backups - if our server fails, we'll just ask the NSA for a copy.

Double Stamp Duty: Webb to speak at CanCham, Wednesday 3-Jul
Company media release, 26-Jun-2013
Seats are still available for a breakfast organised by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce next Wednesday, at which a panel of legislators, property experts and free-market advocates will lead a discussion of the Government's proposed doubling of stamp duty, which, like the 15% "Buyer's Stamp Duty" and the higher rate and duration of "Special Stamp Duty" has not yet become law. Hit the link to sign up.

RECENT ARTICLES
Second submission to LegCo on DSD
This morning's session with public delegations, in which a junior civil servant was fielded, leaves a number of fundamental policy questions to be answered by the principal officials. Here they are. (13-Jun-2013)

RECENTLY ON WEBB-SITE
Avoiding double stamp duty
A HK$1.6bn deal announced yesterday neatly demonstrates how the proposed Double Stamp Duty will drive higher-end transactions into the corporate transfer market, while freezing up the low end with prohibitive taxation. We'll be speaking against DSD in LegCo tomorrow. (12-Jun-2013)

Scrap the public float rule
Investors in SCMP (0583) are in the deep freeze again, and other companies have indulged in artificial schemes to comply with the 25% public float rule. The rule should be scrapped, because as we explain, it has no real purpose, and because the only way to enforce it is to victimize minority shareholders by suspending their shares. The rule does not serve investor interests. (11-Jun-2013)

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