The Kwok brothers who run Hong Kong's Sun Hung Kai Properties, have quietly hired a crisis manager to help them navigate through one of the highest-level corruption probes in the history of the anti-graft agency, the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong and Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, co-chairmen of SHKP, together with Rafael Hui Si-yan, a former Hong Kong chief secretary, were arrested in late March by the ICAC as a result of an investigation into allegations of bribery and misconduct in public office.
The three have not yet been charged and have been released on bail, though some investment bank analysts believe charges will be laid and the case moved to court in the next few months.
The negative publicity arising from the arrests dented SHKP's reputation and the immediate reaction of investors to the news was to dump the developer's shares on March 30, wiping 13 per cent off the developer's market capitalisation in a single trading session.
The shares closed at HK$89.25 yesterday, down 19.6 per cent since news of the probe broke. The benchmark Hang Seng Index has lost 3.5 per cent over the same period.
Now the Kwok brothers have engaged the Hong Kong office of global crisis management firm APCO Worldwide to help them manage the crisis of confidence created by their arrest and the ICAC probe, and repair SHKP's damaged reputation.
