Official eyes year-end launch despite 'all smoke, no heat' jab
Shares in digital media firm Vertex Communications & Technology Group soared 150 per cent yesterday on news of a sketchy plan to supply electricity to Hong Kong from the mainland.
Although no detailed business plan was released, investors chased the stock up to 37 cents from 14.8 cents after the company said it would form a venture with China Power International Holding that could challenge the utility duopoly of CLP Holdings and Hongkong Electric Holdings.
Vertex's chairman, former legislator Steven Poon Kwok-lim, has served as general manager of CLP. China Power general manager and president Li Xiaolin is the daughter of former premier Li Peng.
Mr Poon said Vertex and China Power, parent of main board-listed China Power International Development, formed a 30-70 joint venture on Monday that aimed to lay its own power distribution grid and be ready to serve 'a sizeable number' of customers by the end of the year.
Analysts, however, are sceptical of the viability of the plan unless both CLP and Hongkong Electric allow the emerging player to access their power distribution grids.
'I would not challenge the company's ability to source power from the mainland, but there is a big question mark on how it would transmit electricity in Hong Kong,' Fulbright Securities general manager Francis Lun Sheung-nim said.