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David Evans

Musings from fung shui masters and fortune tellers are being relegated to second place this June as companies consult an oracle of an altogether different variety.

Hong Kong-based enterprises regularly consult the readers of Earth, Fire, Water, Gold and Wood for everything from the best dates to launch an initial public offering to where the chairman should place his desk.

Printed circuit-board manufacturer Topsearch called in the soothsayers for the company's proposed HK$230 million listing on Hong Kong's main board.

After consulting the five elements and a pocket diary, the all-seeing one decided that there were some good dates in June.

Company executives and listing sponsor DBS Asia Capital director Kelvin Lau consulted their pocket diaries and decided that there would also be some very bad dates.

Friday, June 7, when England play Argentina in the World Cup finals and Saturday, June 8, when China play Brazil.

Major matches in the competition that could distract potential investors.

However, Mr Lau joked with Topsearch executives that both days may in fact turn out to be fortuitous dates for a listing.

'Fund managers may be away watching the matches and be too busy to sell the shares,' he said. 'And they may become a long-term hold.'

Fan returns:

HSBC executives were rejoicing at the return of a long-lost shareholder at the banking group's informal shareholders' meeting on Tuesday.

Ng Hui-lam had missed last year's meeting because he was away on a trip.

Mr Ng is a longstanding shareholder and makes a point of standing up during the Q&A session to praise the bank and its executives on their performance.

Mr Ng - who was first to arrive at the meeting - said he was away last year and had been unable to attend.

'We did notice you weren't here,' group chief executive Keith Whitson said.

Perhaps concerned that Mr Ng was hogging all the limelight, Lui Po-kei then stood up and waved a plastic bag of share certificates in the air.

Mr Lui was fed-up with having to carry so much scrip around in his plastic bag that he wanted the bank to reissue the Jumbo 10,000 share lots similar to those in 1978 and 1985.

At yesterday's closing price of HK$94.75 Mr Lui would need more than a plastic shopping bag to carry the HK$947,500 needed for one lot.

Premature:

Cheung Kong Holdings may have been trying to get its feet under the table even before the table was built, according to industry watchers.

Li Ka-shing's infrastructure conglomerate is favourite to win the open tender to develop all the hotel, office and retail portions of The Metropolis in Hunghom. It is the joint developer with rail operator and owner the KCRC.

According to our source, a number of workmen rocked up at the project recently ready to start to work.

He said the men looked suspiciously like Cheung Kong employees.

However, someone at KCRC told the workers it could be a little embarrassing as bids had not yet been opened and sent them packing.

According to a KCRC spokesman - who did not comment on the incident - the winning tender should be announced this week. Cheung Kong also would not comment.

Again, again:

Mangling his metaphors recently was Mineko Sasaki-Smith, chief strategist at PWC Consultants in Japan.

Ms Sasaki-Smith was unimpressed that Japanese banks' projections were based heavily on the premise that the economy was on an upturn, albeit very moderately, dragging stock prices higher.

'It's deja vu all over again,' she commented.

Graphic: whee30gbz



World Cup plays havoc with fung shui