Western Banks Face New Level of Scrutiny Over Hong Kong IPOs
November 03 2016 - 10:30AM
Dow Jones News
HONG KONG—Hong Kong's securities regulator, boosting oversight
of the world's top market for initial public offerings, is cracking
down on Western investment banks over some listings.
According to people familiar with the matter, they include those
of China Forestry Holdings Co., underwritten by UBS Group AG and
Standard Chartered PLC, and China Metal Recycling (Holdings) Ltd.,
underwritten by UBS. The two companies, whose 2009 IPOs raised a
combined total of more than US$400 million, were put in liquidation
after regulators found evidence of fraudulent accounting.
Both banks have said Hong Kong's Securities and Futures
Commission plans action against them over IPOs. Spokesmen for the
banks declined to comment beyond their statements. The regulator
confirmed the investigations but declined to comment further.
Standard Chartered scrapped its equities business last year.
Bankers and lawyers in the Asian financial hub say that more
investigations and regulatory actions could be on the way.
Hong Kong is the world's No. 1 market for IPOs this year,
raising $21.2 billion to top New York. IPOs of Chinese companies
seeking global investors have long been the lifeblood of the city's
bustling financial scene.
While Hong Kong's securities regulator in the past has taken on
cases against local brokers and mainland Chinese firms operating in
Hong Kong, it has rarely probed the IPO work of big Western
investment banks. However, in recent years, investors have been
stung by a string of high-profile failures of recently listed
companies that carried the imprimatur of Western underwriters.
Hong Kong's securities regulator "has become more willing to
take action against the big-name banks than they were in the past,"
said Robert Cleaver, a partner at law firm Linklaters LLP. "They
have to make an example of a few people if they want to be
effective."
He said the new approach is a product of underwriting rules
implemented in 2013, which could make investment banks and bankers
criminally responsible for false information in the prospectuses of
companies they take public—raising the bar for work on such deals.
The regulator has also bulked up on enforcement staff, and in March
hired Thomas Atkinson, a former Canadian securities enforcement
official, to lead its enforcement division.
Investment banks themselves are stepping up their efforts, as
well, hiring due-diligence firms to verify company claims and
building out compliance teams.
China Forestry Holdings Co., a forestry-plantation operator in
China, became embroiled in scandal when its auditor found
accounting irregularities and its former chief executive was
arrested in 2011 by Chinese authorities for alleged embezzlement.
The company's Hong Kong liquidators are now suing Standard
Chartered, UBS, and other firms that worked on the company's
IPO.
China Metal Recycling—the country's self-proclaimed biggest
scrap-metal recycler by revenue—fell under the scrutiny of short
seller Glaucus Research Group California LLC, which said in a 2013
report that it had inflated revenue. After an investigation, Hong
Kong's securities regulator found that the company's IPO prospectus
had "overstated its financial position" and sought its
liquidation.
China Forestry is in the process of being delisted, while China
Metal Recycling was delisted in February, according to exchange
filings.
Write to Alec Macfarlane at Alec.Macfarlane@wsj.com, Kane Wu at
Kane.Wu@wsj.com and Julie Steinberg at julie.steinberg@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 03, 2016 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)
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