Invest Positively

Chinese securities regulators are preparing some of the world’s strictest regulations on a trading practice at the heart of the global debate over high-speed computerised markets.

When stock exchanges introduce a second board, it is often targeted at attracting companies with nil or limited profit records but with growth potential. The acronyms used reflect the exchanges’ optimism or aspirations about these companies, such as Catalist in Singapore, AIM (Alternative Investment Market) in the United Kingdom, and GEM (Growth Enterprise Market) in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, companies aiming to be catalysed into gems through access to public capital may not fulfil their promise.

Beijing is trying to rid mainland stock markets of collusion between power and money by stepping up investigations of securities companies, analysts said, while warning of shocks to markets that had just stabilised.

Borrowers in Singapore, so far spared from a wave of defaults in the oil services industry, are starting to ask creditors to cut them some slack.

The Singapore Exchange is closely monitoring disclosures of companies, including those which show large swings in financial positions and performance, and the regulator warns it will not hesitate to report audit infractions to relevant authorities.

The Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect will be launched this year despite widespread market expectations it would be delayed to 2016, the governor of the People’s Bank of China said on Wednesday.

CNQC (South Pacific), known for developing mass-market condominiums and executive condominiums in Singapore under the “Qingjian Realty” brand, underwent a backdoor listing in Hong Kong without any apparent glitch this month.

Two of the independent directors facing a vote to kick them off the board of doormaker KLW Holdings have listed their concerns about the company in a statement posted on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

The hip, casual trend in business started years ago in Silicon Valley, with millionaire and billionaire investors shuffling about in flip-flops and shorts. Then it spread to the hedge fund managers, who especially during the Internet bubble, sported goatees and wore jeans to the office, even as traditional money managers were stuck in the uniform of business suits.

But privy lists that companies need to maintain widened to include all material transactions

Keppel Offshore & Marine and Sembcorp Marine are eyeing shipbuilding orders from an expected uptick in small-scale liquefied natural gas activity.

With a key capital-raising opportunity looming, shareholders of KLW Holdings need to consider the history of its new directors and determine if they are truly independent.

KLW Holdings’ largest single stakeholder on Monday won his bid to replace a majority of directors with his own nominees as the company sought police help in investigating alleged unauthorised transactions by its managing director.

At first blush, the mystery of who sold a 7.04 per cent stake in offshore and marine group Ezra Holdings to Norway’s DNB Bank on Sept 25 might appear to have been much ado about nothing. As analysts have conjectured, the roughly S$25 million deal was likely to do with a substantial shareholder having pledged some shares to DNB Bank as collateral for financing.

I read with interest your BT article “Singapore market value down five months in a row” on Oct 1, 2015. It is worrying that despite all the IPO capital raising from 2012 to 2015, the Sept 30, 2015 closing market cap “was the lowest month-end reading since August 2012, when the total market was worth S$829.3 billion”.

The sell-down on the Singapore bourse has coincided with a sharp spike in short-selling activity in some component stocks of the benchmark Straits Times Index.

A pattern that accompanied the start of the last two bear markets is showing up in US stocks.

It may come across as a simple deal, but YuuZoo Corp’s recently announced S$30 million funding facility from US-based fund GEM Global is by no means heartening for investors saddled by the anaemic showing of its stock since its debut on the Singapore Exchange a year ago.

Three listing committees to advise the market regulator on listing, disciplinary and appeal matters

Chinese stocks trading in Hong Kong will surge 33 per cent by the end of this year as stronger fiscal stimulus on the mainland revives economic growth, Deutsche Bank AG said.

Yuuzoo Corp has secured a S$30 million funding facility for the next three years from New York-based private alternative investment group GEM Global Yield Fund.

A veteran fighter of boardroom wars has re-emerged and is now planning directorship changes at furniture maker KLW Holdings.

Investors who have been locked in suspended mainland shipping stocks should think twice about the potential merits of a merger.

Long before she became the first woman to figure in the top-10 on Forbes “Midas List”of leading venture capital investors this year, GGV Capital’s Jenny Lee cut her teeth as an engineer on Singapore’s fighter jets.

A strategic investor willing to pay a premium is, by most measures, a pretty good way for Olam International to wash off the taint of Muddy Waters. But Olam’s journey through Purgatory may not be an easily repeated trek for other companies hoping to escape their own hostile-short seller hell.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp is taking a 20 per cent stake in Temasek-controlled Olam International in two separate deals totalling some S$1.53 billion, fuelling the consolidation trend in the otherwise moribund agri sector.

The board of Catalist-listed LionGold Corp said the gold miner can operate as a going concern, in response to a Singapore Exchange (SGX) query on external auditor PwC’s disclaimer of opinion on the matter.

At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, as Wall Street slashed jobs, Beijing took advantage of the disarray to poach top Chinese financial talent from overseas to help reform its stock markets. Reuters

Shares in the Pacific Andes stable were sent reeling on Friday by news that the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Republic’s white-collar crime investigation agency Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) are investigating an offence under the Securities and Futures Act (SFA).

An intensifying rivalry between China's two top oil traders Chinaoil and Unipec is whipsawing Asia's oil market, pitting the state-owned firms against each other in a battle for control of the region's crude benchmark.

Even as Noble Group is still nursing its wounds from scathing attacks, including from a short seller, software solutions provider Silverlake Axis has become the fourth company on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in recent history to have become the target of short selling.

Gold miner LionGold Corp said on Friday its independent auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), have issued a disclaimer of opinion for the company’s FY2014/2015 financial statements.

High Park Residences in Sengkang has enjoyed roaring sales in recent weeks, but investors in its smaller units may have trouble leasing them out.

Singapore-based wealth managers, already under pressure from a global move towards tax information sharing, face a more immediate threat as Asian countries including Indonesia and India look to chase undeclared money in the low-tax city state.

Some foreign investors have found a new and simple way to make money from China’s dysfunctional stock markets - by dispensing with market research and playing “follow the leader” instead.

Bankruptcy may be a financial failure, but recent changes to the law show that it need not be regarded as a moral failure also.

Noble Group will hold an investor conference in Singapore today in another bid to fight off attacks over its accounting practices after endorsement from a second auditor failed to convince markets and detractors last week.

China’s currency devaluation is not the end of the matter. And nor its recent stock market mayhem. They are clear symptoms of a deeply troubled world economy, and investors need to wake up to the risk that market jitters will get a lot more serious in coming months.

Former Jade Technologies Holdings director Anthony Soh Guan Cheow, convicted of share rigging and insider trading, has been sentenced to eight years and nine months in jail and fined S$50,000 - the highest sentences imposed for such offences in Singapore to date.

Anthony Soh Guan Cheow, a medical doctor turned businessman, was on Friday (Aug 14) sentenced to 8 years and 9 months’ jail and fined S$50,000 in connection with a failed takeover bid for Jade Technologies Holdings in 2008.

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One of the criticisms I’ve heard of the “bankers behaving badly” cliché is that it doesn’t apply to the majority of bankers; it’s just a few bad apples and they typically work in emerging markets.

Hundreds of foreign hedge funds and traders are working in a regulatory grey area in China, using speculative trading strategies that are complicating regulators’ efforts to calm the country’s turbulent stock markets.

A potentially toxic item packaged as an innocuous sounding innovation has appeared on the queue for listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange late on Thursday.

The State Council has finally approved an ambitious – and long-awaited – blueprint to overhaul China’s sclerotic state-owned enterprises in a Singapore-inspired quest for desperately needed new growth, sources close to the decision-making process said.

China Ocean Shipping Group  (Cosco) and China Shipping Group  are planning a merger, in what could be a far more complicated consolidation process than combining the country’s two train makers.

China is considering a merger of China Shipping Group and Cosco Group, its two major shipping companies, amid a broader push to streamline state-owned enterprises, according to people familiar with the matter.

Chinese developer Fantasia Holdings Group has launched a vacation rental business similar to Airbnb and HomeAway to utilise the scores of homes left unsold as a property boom faded.

Jon Carnes of Eos Funds, who once made a fortune betting against Chinese companies, is now so bullish on China stocks that he is predicting that the Shanghai Composite Index will double by the end of 2016.

Tujia.com has raised US$300 million at a valuation of more than US$1 billion, as the Chinese vacation rentals site often compared with Airbnb Inc. pursues financing to bankroll a global expansion.

Four former employees of Phillip Securities who defrauded the brokerage by exploiting a loophole in internal systems escaped jail for their scam last week.

How far can Chinese markets fall before systemic risks start to breakout?

Chinese market regulators blame short sellers for the rout in the country’s equity markets, but the accusation seems baseless as overseas money managers only represent a fraction of exchange traded funds tracking mainland stocks.

Mrs Zhu is just the type of investor the Chinese government should worry about as it tries to engineer a turnaround in the country’s stock markets, whose massive swings have heightened fears for the country’s financial health.

Boutique fund manager ICH Gemini said on Wednesday it has launched a private equity fund in Singapore with at least US$110 million in capital that it will invest in mid-sized companies at growing or mezzanine stages.

Recent research and surveys revealed some of the unique characteristics of this early generation of mainland investors who are experiencing their first taste of the market thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

What are the chances of one casually spending millions on a penny stock just before a big state firm agrees to take over the company? Very low, right?

Top executives from 21 securities firms spent the morning of Saturday July 4 pinned to government office chairs while the future of China's stock markets hung in the balance. Caxin

Bankrupts in Singapore now have a clear time frame to meet specific repayment goals in order to be discharged, under changes to the law passed in Parliament yesterday.

Many of China’s successful entrepreneurs have become huge celebrities on the mainland attracting an enormous number of fans.

Singapore-listed China New Town Development (CNTD), backed by China’s largest policy bank, has lined up a strong pipeline of projects and believes a turnaround is “just around the corner” after two years of losses.

I refer to the announcement by Noble Group on July 14 that it has appointed David Yeow, a lawyer who is resident in Singapore, as a new independent director.

While it's no secret that Asia is the world's millionaire factory, what may not be as well known is just how young the region's ultra-moneyed are. Asia's millennials rich list, compiled by wealth research firm Wealth-X, reveals the 10 wealthiest individuals in the region aged between 18 and 34. The term millennials refers to "80s and 90s babies", or to be exact, those born between 1981 to 1997, as defined by think tank Pew Research Center. Unsurprisingly, Chinese dominate the ranking, accounting for nine out of the top 10. Those who feature on the ranking, however, have made their wealth in very different ways, from jewellery to real estate to technology. Some are self-made and others the lucky inheritors of family fortunes, but one thing's for certain: there's some serious dosh floating around the region. Click ahead to find out who these young and incredibly cashed up individuals are. CNBC

Hong Kong’s stock watchdog took the rare step of saying trading in Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd shares can’t resume without its approval, raising the prospect they’ll remain suspended for the foreseeable future.

The Bankruptcy Amendment Bill has been passed with the aim of improving the bankruptcy regime. Changes will ensure that bankrupts have a greater certainty as to when they are eligible to be discharged.

When Mr Loh Boon Chye left the board of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in 2012, equity trading volume on the bourse had been steadily dwindling for years.

Former investment banker Loh Boon Chye, who assumes his new role as chief executive officer of the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on Tuesday this week, should helm an exchange that is entirely profit-driven with no regulatory functions, says David Gerald, president and CEO of Securities Investors Association of Singapore (SIAS).

The share consolidations that numerous mainboard-listed firms have undergone thus far to comply with Singapore Exchange’s minimum trading price (MTP) rule seem to have largely turned out to be a case of one step forward, two steps back - hardly the most encouraging sign for the many others that may soon have to take a similar path.

Fan Xiaolin, an engineer in Changsha in central China, thought he was safe when he deposited his family’s savings of 800,000 yuan ($130,000) in a private finance company he said was recommended by employees of state-owned Bank of China.

China was taking great strides in liberalising its financial infrastructure until its stock market crash began last month, but Beijing’s attempts to arrest the rout have torpedoed one after another of its reform goals.

Faced with a stomach-turning slide in share prices, many Chinese companies are taking matters into their own hands with a tactic that experts say is bound to backfire: they’re pressing the pause button.

Chinese stock traders want Beijing to create a super-regulator to take over the investor relations and communication duties of existing regulators, which they say have co-ordinated poorly in their handling of the country’s stock market crash.

China’s securities regulator took the drastic step of ordering shareholders with stakes of more than five per cent from selling shares for the next six months in a bid to halt a plunge in stock prices that is starting to roil global financial markets.

Chinese hedge funds have been big short sellers of locally traded commodities, including iron ore, steel and rubber, after redeploying cash from tumbling equity markets where authorities have slapped curbs on trading, fund managers and traders said.

After reading the letter “Achieving a robust and vibrant securities market” by Ong Chong Tee of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (BT, June 26), trading representatives (TRs) cannot help but feel that it will be business as usual in the equities market here even with a new CEO at the Singapore Exchange (SGX).

For Chinese President Xi Jinping, mission No 1 has been preserving Communist Party rule. That now means stabilising the stock market.

Noble Group’s board of directors has set up an independent board committee to review its accounting practices, months after being in the spotlight over critics’ accusations of poor governance and lack of transparency.

After seeing billions wiped off its market value, embattled commodities trader Noble Group has finally called for an external review of its accounting practices, in a bid to boost investor confidence.

Mainland Chinese stocks tumbled sharply at the open on Wednesday as sell orders piled up in an increasingly fragile market where an unprecedented 51 per cent of all listed shares are now voluntarily suspended from trade, locking up some US$2.2 trillion of previously tradeable market capitalisation.

Chinese authorities and financial institutions have undertaken coordinated actions to stem the bleeding in the equity markets, but it appears that sentiments were hardly swayed.

China Fibretech shares, which underwent a 50-into-one consolidation in May, have undergone hugely volatile trading this week, prompting dealers to once again question the wisdom of forcing companies to undergo share consolidation to meet the Singapore Exchange’s new minimum trading price (MTP) of S$0.20.

Chinese shipbuilder JES International could be taking legal action against its former CEO and chairman Jin Xin, after it uncovered possible financial irregularities related to him. It has also started proceedings against a former employee who absconded with the group’s administrative records and seals.

A female employee has delayed an investigation into dubious payments to the former boss of Chinese shipbuilder JES International by “absconding” with the company’s books.

Missing executives, bribery probes, workers suspected of pilfering company documents - not the plot for a thriller, just regular reading for a Hong Kong stock trader.

Market stakeholders welcomed a review of the dual role of Singapore Exchange (SGX) as a regulator and a commercial business, a day after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said there could be scope to do so.

Now a tycoon with a net worth of S$3 billion and the 11th richest man in Singapore, Peter Lim is a classic rags-to-riches story if ever there was one.

While the Hong Kong stock market prepares to curb volatility and “fat-finger errors”, not all brokers are happy with the proposed reforms.

After a lengthy debate, Hong Kong stockbrokers have finally accepted the stock exchange proposal to relaunch an auction system to determine stock closing price.

Raise trading volumes. Make securities sizzle. Bring back the lunch break. The incoming Singapore Exchange chief has his work cut out for him

The Singapore stock market has unexpectedly turned into a playground for short-sellers looking to profit from weakness in shares of companies with heavy exposure to a slowing Chinese economy or the energy sector.

I beg to differ with the view that “Expectations of incoming SGX CEO should be toned down” (BT, June 12). The writer, Vincent Khoo, being a seasoned remisier himself, will do well to remember that the current SGX CEO is paid close to S$3.8 million, a king’s ransom by any measure, and the stockbroking community here has every right to have a laundry list of expectations for the new CEO. If something goes wrong, is it not in order to convene a committee of inquiry to get to the bottom of the issues and start putting things right? The writer seems to have issues with this. One wonders why.

The long-running battle between beleaguered commodities trader Noble Group and its toughest critics has entered into its fifth month, with no end in sight.

A pretentious ‘watching brief’ on the changing scene at SGX

While the Hong Kong stock market prepares to curb volatility and “fat-finger errors”, not all brokers are happy with the proposed reforms.

After a lengthy debate, Hong Kong stockbrokers have finally accepted the stock exchange proposal to relaunch an auction system to determine stock closing price.

Home-grown Loyz Energy could be joining the ranks of Singapore’s largest listed upstream oil and gas companies.

Shares in Noble Group have rebounded after its founder said the commodity trader will “right the damage” and do its best to restore the share value, even as a rating agency revised its outlook on Noble from “stable” to “negative”.

Shares in commodities firm Noble Group may have enjoyed some respite from their recent weakness when they bounced S$0.06 from a six-year low to close at S$0.705 on Thursday after its chairman Richard Elman sent a letter to shareholders and staff to reassure them that management is working hard behind the scenes. But unless the company takes radical steps to win over the market’s confidence, there is every chance that weakness may quickly resume.

Steel trader Albedo Limited said it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in a Taiwanese aesthetic medicine group.

Global index provider MSCI rejected on Tuesday the addition in 2015 of Chinese A-shares in one of its key benchmark indexes for global stock markets, dealing a setback to Beijing’s efforts to further open up its domestic capital markets.

Loyz Energy on Tuesday announced that it would acquire oil and gas company Primeline Energy Holdings (PEH) for about S$197 million, and seek a transfer of its listing from Catalist to mainboard thereafter.

China New Town Development disclosed on Tuesday that its controlling shareholder, Shi Jian, has been required by the PRC Changzhou Procuratorate to remain under “custody in designated residence”.

Hong Kong’s markets regulator will back a plan to stop fat fingers and rogue algorithms from causing erroneous swings in the city’s biggest stocks.

In the movies, visual effects are all about creating something out of nothing. Much awarded for that craft, Digital Domain is now pushing the art further, trying to turn something into nothing.

The rapid liberalization of Chinese derivatives markets has attracted a new breed of creative traders employing complex trading strategies that can generate quick profits - and an extra dollop of risk - in China’s runaway stock boom.

MD Wira Dani Bin Abdul Daim owed Maybank Kim Eng Securities Pte $2.6 million for LionGold shares bought in a leveraged account, according to a lawsuit filed April in the Singapore High Court. The brokerage received court approval last month to serve the lawsuit on the son of former Malaysian Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin.

Jason Holdings’ CEO Jason Sim has pledged his shares amounting to a total 15.75 per cent stake in the company to four other parties.

A subsidiary of Sino Construction has received approval to start operations at its micro power plants in Korea.

Because of Pan-El, regulation here changed, corporate governance stopped being a joke and senior people cooperated with each other.

From September, the Straits Times Index (STI) constituents must be more actively traded to be part of the benchmark.

Are companies allowed to post positive research reports - whether paid or independent - about themselves on the SGX website?

Maybe it’s only me, but I’m not entirely comfortable with YuuZoo posting a positive research report about itself on SGX, especially when it paid for the research in the first place.

George is a private entrepreneur from the mainland. He has listed his business in Hong Kong. The first thing he does on listing here is not improving his business, but pushing up the price of the stock.

The volatility illustrates the need for regulators to keep pace with the boom in China’s stock markets

Hundreds of technology-linked firms have set up shop, creating a thriving services hub

Singapore Exchange’s Catalist board, now populated by more than 150 companies, could get crowded as more firms seek to transfer their listing to the “junior board” to avoid the minimum trading price (MTP) rule facing mainboard companies.

Nineteen months after the penny stock collapse there are disturbing signs that history is being repeated, albeit in a not-so-spectacular fashion.

Retail participation in the Singapore market has fallen in the last 18 months, but it is also less speculative today, a senior executive at the Singapore Exchange (SGX) suggested on Friday.

Even though it has been more than a year since the Singapore Exchange (SGX) proposed the introduction of a minimum trading price (MTP) of S$0.20 for stocks to remain listed on the mainboard, and even after dozens of companies have already embarked on share consolidations so as to satisfy the MTP which kicks in next March, there is still opposition (see, for example, "Minimum trading price seen working against share issuers, investors", BT May 6).