Lai SeeDon't miss out stock exchange drivers in typhoon guidelines

Our piece yesterday on typhoon signal No 8 has attracted some interest. Richard Witts writes with a tale from the 1970s.

Among his various roles in the finance industry was a spell as the secretary and general manager of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the days when the city was blessed with four exchanges.

He writes to say that financial secretary Philip Haddon-Cave was attempting to force the four exchanges to amalgamate and the first very small step in that direction was the formation in July 1974 of the Hong Kong Federation of Stock Exchanges.

"I was appointed the Hon Sec. It really did not do anything much in part because we did not agree on very much." One of the few things it managed to agree on was regulations for when the stock exchanges should close and reopen upon the approach and retreat of typhoons. "My proposal was in part to avoid every member of the HKSE phoning me as to when the market would reopen at the first hint that signals may be lowered."

So Witts duly drew up the guidelines, which were readily accepted by the federation's council with one amendment. The time gap he had proposed between the lowering of signals and the beginning of trading was lengthened by one hour. This was to allow time for brokers' drivers to get from their no-doubt-humble dwellings to their masters' abodes to collect them.