Sunday 4th February 2018

Dear Reader,

NEW ARTICLE
Hong Kong's not-so-free economy
The US-based Heritage Foundation has, as always, ranked HK as the freest economy in the World. For once, the Government doesn't accuse foreign forces of interfering in HK's internal affairs. But this rosy view is not held by those who take the time to study the domestic economy. Here are a few things that Heritage may have overlooked. (4-Feb-2018)

RECENTLY ON WEBB-SITE
Kingston (1031): things you should know
Even after today's plunge, Kingston is trading at 13.2x net tangible assets of $0.508 per share, 70.8x trailing earnings, and is heavily dependent on low-cost loans from its majority shareholder. Don't bet on that continuing. We also look at the extent of its margin lending to controlling shareholders of large numbers of other listed companies. (30-Jan-2018)

Your stocks, your way
We're launching new features for registered users. Build your own stock list, use a dashboard to find information on the stocks, and see CCASS movements, total returns and directors' dealings for your stocks in one page. And yes, it's all free! We also encourage users to give something back to the community by anonymously contributing your Governance Ratings of companies and Trust Ratings of people. (24-Jan-2018)

IN OTHER NEWS
Capital VC (2324) dilutes holders againOptions announcement
Company announcement, 2-Feb-2018
The "Enigma Network" investment company is blowing the general mandate, issuing 19.96% new shares at $0.05, not mentioning the 84.9% discount to Net Asset Value of $0.3308 at 31-Dec-2017. The board claims the issue is "in the interests of the Company and the Shareholders as a whole". The placing agent, Infast Brokerage, is 95% owned by GCPS (8193), another Enigma member. 3 minutes eariler, Capital VC announced a grant of 275m options at $0.058 to unnamed persons. That's another potential 10% enlargement of the share base at an 82.5% discount to NAV. We call on the SFC to direct the Stock Exchange to reject the listing application for all the new shares.

ICAC & DoJ clear Jimmy Lai, Mark Simon and 5 current and former pro-democracy legislators
ICAC, 1-Feb-2018
Following the acquittal of legislator Leung Kwok Hung in a similar case, the Department of Justice has advised the ICAC that there is insufficient evidence to justify prosecution.

US Treasury sanctions the "Zhao Wei Transnational Criminal Organization"
US Treasury, 30-Jan-2018

And much more besides...
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David M. Webb
Editor, Webb-site.com