Brokers are re-entering the covered warrant market amid cut-throat competition this week as more than 100 issues have been approved for listing, according to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing chief executive Kwong Ki-chi.
Listing rules state new issues have to be advertised for five working days before listing, meaning that they will not be listed until Monday at the earliest.
Yesterday, CLSA Emerging Markets, ABN Amro, UBS Warburg and KBC Financial were among those pushing their issues out to market.
Brokers are clearly counting on a large liquidity pool.
CLSA, for example, proposed that it would issue more than HK$900 million call warrants each on HSBC Holdings and China Mobile.
If the other bankers are planning similar issues, brokers would expect to sell more than $90 billion in covered warrants through the market in the short term.
