Lai See | Tech analyst Henry King heads for Goldman's exit
Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs tech analyst Henry King, the firm's Taiwan head of research, took a trip to New York to answer questions from US federal investigators about leaking inside information to hedge funds. After a flurry of news stories in February, nothing more was heard of him.
It was reported that his questioning was part of the numerous investigations that spun out of hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam's trial and conviction in 2009. Apparently King believed it was better to go to New York and answer the feds' questions rather than remain in Taiwan and do it by video. Having answered the questions, he was told that as a witness in a continuing investigation, he couldn't leave the US. So for the past six months, he has been twiddling his thumbs on Goldman's payroll in the US.
That is until recently, when the feds told him they weren't charging him with anything and returned his passport. However, as of last week, there has been a parting of the ways between Goldman and King, though he remains on the company's payroll until December. His departure is unrelated to the Rajaratnam-related investigations in the US, though we gather he did not leave of his own accord.
Although the Airport Authority announced on Wednesday it would look into ways to evaluate the social and environmental impact of the planned third runway, this will do little to allay the suspicions of green groups. They believe the authority does not want to carry out a proper social return on investment study (SROI) out of concern that it could sink the runway project. The authority's initial position was that it would obey the law and pursue the environmental impact assessment process.
After the Legislative Council's environmental affairs panel unanimously called on the authority to conduct an SROI study in April, it responded that there was no accepted international methodology for conducting such a study. It was recently supported in this view by the Transport and Housing Bureau in an e-mail to the green groups: "As we have explained before, SROI is an evaluation tool rooted in the charity sector and is commonly used to evaluate the value of community projects competing for government or charity funding. We also understand that there is no commonly adopted methodology or standards for conducting SROI analysis and that no developed country adopts SROI analysis as general requirement for assessing infrastructure project proposals."