It has been one hell of a ride, even by the standards of Hong Kong's volatile stock market. For Hu Zhaoguang, the man at the head of the roller-coaster, feelings progressed in stages from great expectations to ecstasy, then disbelief, dismay and trepidation and finally to apocalypse.
'Unprecedented' is how Mr Hu, chairman of Beijing Enterprises Holdings, likes to describe the frenzy over the so-called red-chip phenomenon, with the firm's listing taking the ride to dizzying heights before it crashed to earth in a matter of months.
Speaking last Thursday, on the eve of the firm's first anniversary of being a listed company, Mr Hu for the first time gave his account of the spectacular boom and bust ride.
'It is just like yesterday. I remember vividly when I and other company officials were walking on to the trading floor of the stock exchange to make the customary speech before our share trading debut on May 29, [1997].
'I saw hundreds of traders in red jackets standing up and shouting something in unison. It was in Cantonese, which I did not understand.
'Later I was told they were shouting something like 'Welcome the God of Wealth', 'Go on to fifty'. They wanted our share price to rise to $50 on the first trading day. It was something.
'At the beginning, we basked in glory and were brimming with confidence. Before the listing, our shares were 1,276 times oversubscribed and one in every six Hong Kong people put in applications for shares, tying up $215 billion.