Allocating a generous share of the Housing Authority's real estate investment trust to local individual investors will foster harmony in Hong Kong, the financial services minister said yesterday.
Frederick Ma Si-hang said it was fair for the Housing Authority to ensure each individual investor secured at least one board lot of 500 units of the Link Reit.
'The authority's assets belong to the public. The members of the public will have a feeling of ownership of the assets by getting the shares,' the secretary for financial services and the treasury said. 'It will foster social harmony in Hong Kong.'
The authority announced on Sunday that retail subscribers to the Link Reit would receive 56.5 per cent of the total offering.
Speaking on RTHK's phone-in programme Talkabout, Mr Ma said governments in other countries had also allocated more than half of the total offering to the public when they privatised public assets.
He declined to comment on whether the lawsuit filed by two public housing estate residents against the listing of the Link Reit would undermine confidence of overseas investors in Hong Kong.