Hong Kong SAR

Hong Kong may have reclaimed its spot in 2018 as the world’s biggest stock exchange in terms of funds raised, but if early indications for the 2019 first quarter are anything to go by, the bourse is in for a tough time.

One of my favourite parts of meeting up with old friends after Christmas is hearing about the gifts they received. This makes for far more entertaining conversations than bonus season talk.

The Hang Seng Index’s appalling start to the new year has made ECM bankers and investors ultra-cautious about the market, and most participants are taking a wait-and-see approach. Christie Ou reports.

Two senior Morgan Stanley bankers are set to retire from the US investment bank this year.

Considerably cheap valuations have made Weimob, a Tencent Holdings-backed company that is on the road with its Hong Kong IPO, an attractive proposition for equity investors, according to a source close to the listing.

Futu Holdings, parent of Hong Kong-based Futu Securities International, is planning a Nasdaq IPO of up to $300m.

CIMC Vehicles Co is eyeing $500m from a Hong Kong IPO, with plans to launch the listing by the end of the first quarter, according to a source close to the deal.

Q3 Medical Devices is looking to raise around €125m ($142m) through an IPO in Hong Kong, according to a release.

In this round up, Bank of China’s monthly index shows decreasing onshore funding cost, Value Partners’ flagship fund became MRF-eligible and a quarterly London RMB business report shows that the city still leads the way on offshore RMB trading in Europe.

In this round-up, Chinese president Xi Jinping’s speech at the celebration of China’s reform and opening up offered no concrete promises, the People’s Bank of China reopened the seven-day reverse repo after 36 days of suspension, and China dropped its holding of US government bonds for the fifth consecutive month.

The decision to further postpone the ETF Connect between China and Hong Kong offers an opportunity to improve the mutual recognition of funds (MRF) scheme. In a recent report, Ernst & Young and the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association offered the authorities some suggestions.

Deloitte is predicting a major decline in Hong Kong IPO volumes next year, in large part because of uncertainty in the global economic outlook.