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Citic keen on CLSA, quirks and all

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Citic Securities says it plans to keep the quirky corporate culture of CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets intact if it secures control of the Hong Kong-based brokerage firm.

Founded in the late 1980s by Jim Walker and Gary Coull, two former South China Morning Post journalists, CLSA carved out a niche in the broking world by producing controversial research reports and staging high-profile events starring the likes of US commentator Sarah Palin and Hollywood actor George Clooney.

Yin Ke, vice-chairman of Citic Securities, the mainland's biggest brokerage by assets, said the acquisition of CLSA would boost the share of his company's overseas revenue to 20 per cent from about 6 per cent now, helping realise its ambition to become more international.

The proposed acquisition took about three years to negotiate before it was announced last week. It calls for Citic Securities to take over CLSA completely in two stages for a total of US$1.25 billion from CLSA's struggling French parent company, Credit Agricole. Much of what made CLSA distinctive will remain.

'We will keep all CLSA staff and all those CLSA services and products that CLSA clients have enjoyed for years,' Yin said.

'For example, you will still see some [non-financial] celebrities join CLSA's upcoming investment forum, and you will also continue to get the famous annual [fung shui] report from CLSA.'

CLSA's annual market forecast based on fung shui gets a lot of attention in the finance world.

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