It seems nothing is sacred when the liquidation of a certain well-known Hong Kong investment house is going on - not even the traditional Lunar New Year holiday.
Our spy at provisional liquidators to Peregrine, Price Waterhouse, tells us many a holiday getaway by partners and staff at the firm was forced to be cancelled during last week's festivities.
Price has been involved in round-the-clock negotiations with Banque Nationale de Paris and other investment houses over the sale of Peregrine operations over the past few weeks.
This has meant winter escapes have been but a distant dream in the firm's insolvency area.
The sale of the Greater China equity operations to BNP was apparently all but sorted out before the Lunar New Year holiday period, but Price wanted to try to negotiate the sale of Peregrine's overseas operations as well.
Hence the noticeable lack of the relaxed holiday spirit at the firm last week.