Regulators step up monitoring of listings
A dearth of prospectuses for the Fujian Zijin Mining Industry initial public offering (IPO) and other mishaps have prompted financial regulators to step up monitoring of listing sponsors and receiving banks.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) deputy chief operating officer Lawrence Fok Kwong-man said the exchange would monitor sponsors to ensure they provided enough prospectuses.
His remarks followed reports Fujian Zijin had supplied just a limited number of prospectuses as its IPO began yesterday.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said it might call on listing sponsors to ensure that enough copies of prospectuses were distributed, saying investors needed the information to make informed investment decisions.
'The SFC licensees acting as sponsors are required to act professionally and supervise their appointed agents to act according to the relevant law and regulation,' an SFC spokesman said.
Mr Fok said the exchange would intervene again if any receiving banks rejected the yellow application forms submitted by investors who are clients of brokers.
On Wednesday, the exchange received complaints that some branches of HSBC, one of the receiving banks for China Life Insurance's offer, had refused to accept yellow application forms.
Shares from yellow forms are submitted to the Central Clearing and Automated Settlement System under the name of an investor's broker, while shares on white forms are sent directly to the investor. Brokers said the HSBC branches were trying to encourage applicants to use white forms so they would open a stock account with the bank.
Also, there were reports some HSBC branches had stopped accepting applications before yesterday's noon cut-off time.
These actions were unacceptable, Mr Fok said.
