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SCMP Reporter

YES, it really does say Bond Centre in little letters on the top of this drawing of what we now call the Lippo Centre.

  Guy Lam, the solicitor who runs the Hong Kong Alliance of Chinese and Expatriates, is sending these cards out this year.

  Either Guy has a stock of very old cards or - aaaagh! - Alan Bond has bounced back quicker than we thought.

   There are persistent rumours that Lippo is selling off its property portfolio. Maybe Bondy's going to buy it back.

   Golfers get into swing with club debentures  IT'S pretty difficult to find any investments that have gone up over the past year, but we've managed to find a few to brighten the mood over the next few days.

  One is club debentures. The folks over at the Hong Kong Debentures Exchange surprised us by showing that these have bucked the property and stock markets and done very well.

  For instance, a corporate debenture with a single nominee for the American Town and Country Club was $1 million to $1.1 million a year ago. Now it's $1.4 million to $1.5 million.

  The same type of debenture in the Disco Bay Golf Club 12 months ago was going for $1.4 million to $1.5 million. Now they're going for $2.2 million to $2.3 million.

  And in the megabucks league, Royal Hong Kong Golf Clubs debentures were around $9 million a year ago. Now they're going for $11.25 million and they reckon the next one will go for $11.5 million.

  Before anyone rushes out to invest in these they should be warned that there is usually a hefty transfer fee payable to the club, which slashes the profits.

   For instance, anyone buying a Royal HK Golf Club membership 12 months ago and selling it today would only break even because of the 20 per cent transfer fee.

  Of course, he would have been able to play golf for 12 months as well.

   The only sport that you can play with a stock market investment is origami with the share certificates.

  Marked down  THERE'S a festive feel to the magazine produced by the British Chamber of Commerce, which ought to have been named Flying the Flag, but instead is named Britain Trades.

  There's a big pic of famous London store Selfridges on the front, and another on page seven, which had one Hong Kong resident 'quivering with excitement'.

  'My very first job was with Selfridges, and I started on my 16th birthday,' he recalled.

  However, having scanned the issue, including the special article about Christmas shopping, he's found no trace of Selfridges elsewhere.

  Why didn't they put Marks and Spencer on the cover? It's a famous British shop, a BCC member we think, and it's mentioned in an article.

   Or do the nobs at the British Chamber of Commerce think M&S is a bit too commonplace to grace their publication's cover?   Burying cable ONE of the more dismal investments of '95 has been Cable and Wireless, the daddy company of Hongkong Telecom, which has seen its shares fall 30 per cent on the London exchange.

  The company as a whole is now barely worth more than its stake in Hongkong Telecom, never mind its other operations from Australia to the Caribbean.

  Barron's, the American financial paper, chatted with C&W boss James Ross and, as well as discovering he's the great-grandson of one of the first explorers of Antarctica, asked him if he would break the company up, a situation that could see $90 billion of Hongkong Telecom shares up for sale.

  James said 'no', and that the 50 per cent discount to net asset value meant the market was telling him to fix his operations in Britain.

  But then he said that if this strategy hadn't started to work by the end of 1995, 'we need to review whether it is on track or not'.

  'If the market is saying, 'we don't believe you can create any value in the future', then of course we will have to break it up.'   Barron's comments: 'The clock is ticking.'    And it certainly is. This issue could start to dominate Hongkong Telecom's share price next year.

  It's interesting to note that if C&W decides to sell its Hongkong Telecom shares to release value for its own shareholders, the folks from CITIC will almost certainly get first right of refusal.

  We always reckoned Hongkong Telecom would one day be renamed CITIC Telecom (HK). Maybe it'll happen faster than we thought.

  Lapping it up  BAD news for Mongolians who now have to cope with a new tax on pets.

  The tax is 267 tugrik a month, which is about $5.

   Plus there is an extra payment described as 'compensation for disturbing the peace of other tenants', which takes it to 400 tugrik a month, about $8, and which we suspect is indirectly given to the pet-owners' neighbours.

  An official update on the tax states: 'Cats and dogs are consuming the same hot and cold water as people in the apartments'.

  Either they've got a lot of thirsty dogs and cats up in Mongolia or the folks up there don't take many baths.

  Just returns?  A PASSENGER turned up at the Singapore Airlines office in the United Centre yesterday wanting a refund on a half-used Australia-Hong Kong return ticket.

  No problem, said the staff. But we can only refund the cash through the office where it was purchased.

  In other words, go to Australia and get the refund there. Brilliant thinking.



In bondage