DENWAY Investment and the $240 billion of hopeful investors' money its issue last week attracted continue to be the subject of controversy.
The subscription of 658 times the number of shares available to the public left many individual securities and banking figures gasping.
This phenomenon prompted the Government to get involved. Two separate investigations are under way.
The real problem is defining the problem. To use an analogy taken from the world of animal wildlife, it is said elephants are somewhat difficult creatures to describe to an individual who has never seen one before, but you definitely know one when you see one.
There is a consensus that the huge subscription levels caused by Sino-Hongkong stock exchange listings are ridiculous, but no one can define why. This is because theoretically everyone wins.
The underwriters win because the stocks are off their books; the brokers win because there is heavy commission-generating trading in these issues; and the banks probably love the circumstance as the lending that goes on to back applications is huge and highly lucrative.