• Belt & Braces for Belt & Road issuers

  In the latest Clawback, columnist Philippe Espinasse turns his focus to the listing of infrastructure project companies in Hong Kong, saying that IPOs of Belt and Road issuers could be a big challenge.

  • 05 May 2017

• Churning the sea of milk

  To many, the 85% collapse in the share price of China Huishan Dairy Holdings Co on March 24 came as a complete surprise. With now all of the company’s non-executive directors having tendered their resignations (in the process also effectively wiping out Huishan’s audit committee), the company’s key treasury executive still missing, and the controlling shareholder seemingly heading for the exit amid talk of margin calls, the milk producer’s short stint as a public company increasingly looks like a horror story, writes Clawback.

  • 05 Apr 2017

• Heaven can wait

  The CEO of HKEX may be keen for Saudi Aramco to list in Hong Kong but as our columnist Clawback explains, there are more reasons for the Saudi oil giant to bypass the city’s exchange than to pick it for a listing.

  • 07 Mar 2017

• Hong Kong is not fit for unicorns

  The filing of form S-1, the draft registration statement for the proposed $3bn New York IPO of Snap, the $25bn parent company of messaging app Snapchat, was full of surprises — not all of them good for investors. If anything, it also showed that Hong Kong will, most likely, never be able to compete with the US exchanges when it comes to listing unicorns, writes our columnist Clawback.

  • 06 Feb 2017

• The elephants’ graveyard

  Thirty-first of December was not only the last day of a decidedly subdued year, but also the deadline by which Credit Suisse bankers in London were allegedly asked to return the mobile phones issued to them by their employer. This is only the latest nail in the coffin of a profession once seen more as a lifestyle, but which has now become (almost) like any other, writes our columnist Clawback.

  • 04 Jan 2017

• He who pays the piper calls the tune

  Or so the saying goes. Not in China, it seems. Breaking the news that a bulge bracket firm in Hong Kong is suing a Chinese SOE client for non-payment of fees, our columnist Clawback says doing business in China is now little more than a league table exercise.

  • 08 Dec 2016

• Sometimes it’s hard to be a sponsor

  Hong Kong’s IPO sponsors are in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons as Standard Chartered and UBS face investigations by the city’s regulator. As a former IPO banker and joint author of the study manual for sponsors, our columnist Clawback is perfectly placed to delve into the pitfalls for banks.

  • 02 Nov 2016

• The juggernaut

  The speed at which Chinese financial firms have made a significant dent in the investment banking profits of bulge bracket banks has even surprised Clawback.

  • 04 Oct 2016

• Cornerstone summer party

  Clawback turns his focus to cornerstones. Once a useful tool for creating demand, the process has morphed into a kind of insurance policy for IPOs, writes Philippe Espinasse.

  • 06 Sep 2016

• Doing away with Hong Kong’s free float rule

  This month, a recent announcement by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) in relation to one of its listing rules caught the attention of columnist Philippe Espinasse, who has put the regulation under the microscope.

  • 03 Aug 2016

Clawback archive