Announcing a treasure hunt. It seems that somewhere out there the first copy of the prospectus for the privatisation of the Mass Transit Railway Corp has already been printed. Let us see if we can find it.
It does not seem to be in the offices of the MTRC itself. The prospectus has not yet been published, says the corporation and, in any case, the publicity job for the privatisation has been given to outside public relations consultants - ring, ring, click . . . hi there . . . at the tone . . .
But it does seem that stockbrokers working for HSBC may at least have been given a peep. They have already published a research report on this yet to be listed stock, featuring detailed financial projections for every year all the way out to the year 2010, bullish ones too, well, well.
Surely they have not been so presumptuous as to put themselves out on a limb with one of the bank's key accounts by making estimates for the year 2010 on the basis only of the 1999 annual report, which is all that the rest of us have at the moment.
HSBC is in the underwriting syndicate and we already know that members of this syndicate have been told that the MTRC's lawyers must approve their reports before publication.
Is it possible that a reputable firm of lawyers would risk compromising its own client by allowing publication of such forecasts without checking that what the analysts write is coherent with the prospectus? Could the analysts have guessed every figure in that prospectus without seeing it at least once?
So it looks like it's out there somewhere. You too could be the first member of the independent public to find it and that could be quite an achievement given that perhaps the MTRC does not want you to see it so soon.
