Controversy over the disclosure of Richard Li Tzar-kai's HK$3.79 billion placement of Pacific Century CyberWorks shares took another turn yesterday with the stock exchange taking the unusual step of issuing a statement in defence of its role in the affair.
The regulator noted the sequence of events leading to the announcement on Wednesday that CyberWorks had placed 240 million shares in the market on Tuesday. 'We normally don't comment on individual cases. But this time we want to make clear that we would not delay any companies' announcement,' an exchange spokesman said.
The statement from the exchange was in response to claims by CyberWorks deputy chairman Francis Yuen Tin-fan and other market participants that the exchange withheld the placement announcement until 30 minutes into the trading day.
On Wednesday, Mr Yuen told Business Post that CyberWorks - which filed a share-placement notification with the exchange around 9am on Wednesday - had expected the exchange to announce the placement before the stock market opened.
Instead, the announcement was not released on Teletext until 10.31am.
Mr Yuen said the delay arose because the exchange decided not to make any announcement until it had secured Securities and Futures Commission approval.
But the exchange hit back yesterday with evidence that it did not receive CyberWorks' announcement until 9.35am.
