One rule for the students, another rule for the rich
So let's get this straight. If you obstruct the road as the occupiers have been doing for the past month or so, then that's illegal and subverts the rule of law, so our leaders tell us.
So let's get this straight. If you obstruct the road as the occupiers have been doing for the past month or so, then that's illegal and subverts the rule of law, so our leaders tell us. But if we have a large Rolls-Royce and park it on the pavement, as our picture taken yesterday shows, that is evidently OK.
We have noted before that while areas of Central have been closed off in recent weeks, this appears to have restricted the area available for illegal parking, so cars have taken to parking on the pavement outside the former Central Government Offices on Lower Albert Road.
We have seen police spokesmen on television pontificating about "the rule of law". One of them was heard to say that he was concerned about the "law-breaking tendency" of the protests, adding that no one can be above the law. The rejoinder to this is evidently, you can be above it if you have a big Rolls-Royce. We wonder who it could belong to?
Martin Wheatley, erstwhile chief executive of the Securities and Futures Commission who now heads Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, has been baring his soul to the .
Reflecting on his experience in Hong Kong where he spent seven years, he says it was scarring. He was presumably thinking here of the minibond situation where he was personally vilified by those who had lost money while encamped outside his office building.
He apparently views the episode as a personal turning point. "Something had fundamentally gone wrong with finance," he told the paper. "It really opened my eyes." One person who knows him recalls, "It gave him a bit of steel. He sees his role to level the playing field between a powerful industry and a weak consumer."
Better late than never.
We see that our old chum Oleg Deripaska is taking on a new role at Hong Kong-listed Russian aluminium giant Rusal. He is becoming president while the position of chief executive goes to his right-hand man Vladislav Soloviev.
Analysts don't seem to feel this change amounts to a great deal as, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange announcement, Deripaska will continue be responsible for strategy, external relations, supervision of its stake in Norilsk Nickel and research and development. The stock rose 3.63 per cent at one stage, before closing up 2.87 per cent at HK$5.37. It has more than doubled this year on the back of recovering aluminium prices. Still, at HK$5.37 compared with its listing price in January 2010 of HK$10.80, its performance has been less than stellar.
It raised HK$16.7 billion and was warmly supported by the listings committee as it was supposed to pave the way for a string of Russian listings that we can be thankful never materialised. But there is an irony that Rusal was listed whereas Alibaba slipped through its outstretched fingers.
Listing prospectuses are interesting documents, although the interest is not always confined to the IPO. Take Virgin Money's document, which lists the 29 directorships of Richard Branson's chum Gordon McCallum. As notes in its Prufrock column, McCallum sits on the board of Virgin Atlantic, which fights for Hong Kong travellers with Swire's Cathay Pacific, a partner of British Airways in the Oneworld alliance.
This will not please BA's boss Willie Walsh, who is no friend of Branson's. In 2012, when Delta bought a 49 per cent stake in Virgin Atlantic, Walsh bet his rival a "knee in the groin" that the Virgin Atlantic name would disappear within several years.
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