TWO former senior employees of UOB Kay Hian Private Limited (UOBKH) were charged on Wednesday for allegedly lying to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in relation to reports on a then Catalist aspirant. Lan Kang Ming, 38, and Wee Toon Lee, 34, each face three charges of providing MAS with false information in October 2018 in relation to due diligence reports on an unidentified company applying to list on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. MAS said in a media statement on Wednesday that it was performing an onsite inspection of UOBKH between June and August 2018, to assess the latter's controls, policies and procedures in relation to its role as an issue manager for Initial Public Offering (IPOs). During the examination, Lan and Wee were said to have provided different versions of a due diligence report relating to background checks on a company applying to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. UOBKH had acted as the issu...
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Mainland developers’ plans to float themselves in the city dim hopes for massive asset injections
Peggy Sito
20 October 2014
Once stock market darlings, Hong Kong firms used as back-door listing vehicles by the mainland’s property developers have lost their charm for investors, with most of the counters plunging from the time when news of the acquisition was announced.
Hopes for large-scale asset injections dimmed after some big players sought their own listing status on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
“Back-door listing is their Plan B to set up a financial platform in preparation for future fundraising,” said Bocom International analyst Alfred Lau. “Plan A is floating itself on the Hong Kong stock market. When Plan A proceeds well, there is no Plan B. Investors’ dreams of seeing big asset injections should end.”
Dalian Wanda Group, controlled by mainland billionaire Wang Jianlin, is seeking to raise up to US$6 billion in a Hong Kong share float of its property arm. Analysts said investors had raised concerns over the role of its back-door listing vehicle, Wanda Commercial Properties (Group), following the listing.
In April last year, the group bought Hengli Commercial Properties for HK$465.5 million and later changed its name to Wanda Commercial Properties.
Shares in Hengli, which were suspended from trading on February 25 last year, soared 465.22 per cent to HK$1.95 on the day the news was announced. They then hit a high of HK$4.66 on June 18, 2013.
On Friday, the stock shed 1.9 per cent to finish at HK$1.54.
The trend of mainland developers seeking back-door listings in Hong Kong began in 2012 when China Merchants Property Development bought Tonic Industries, now known as China Merchants Land. In the same year, China Vanke bought a 74 per cent stake in Winsor Properties, now renamed as Vanke Property (Overseas).
State-owned developers that followed the trend included Shanghai government-owned Greenland Group and the property arm of the mainland’s largest food trader and processor, Cofco.
Alan Jin, a property analyst at Mizuho Securities, said some of the back-door listing vehicles had performed better than others.
“Their parent firms have injected assets,” he said, adding that the scale of the injections might not have been as large as investors had anticipated.
China Merchants and Greenland have made injections worth more than HK$7 billion in total.
Shares of Greenland Hong Kong Holdings, formerly known as SPG Land (Holdings), closed down 0.67 per cent at HK$2.95 on Friday, well below the HK$8.52 they hit in August last year.
Cofco Land Holdings, formerly Hong Kong Parkview, climbed to a 52-week high of HK$2.40 on July 18, 2012, on news that Cofco had embarked on a HK$362.18 million takeover for the property investment company.
The shares then rose to HK$4 on September 17 last year on news that the company had injected mainland property assets valued at HK$14.17 billion into its Hong Kong-listed unit.
They closed unchanged at HK$1.65 on Friday.