Rogers faces lonely dinner as investment crumbs go stale Here is proof that China investors are not crazy, but rational. A Friday dinner for four with investment guru Jim Rogers (below) in Beijing this week was offered on taobao.com by Beijing Media Group at 18,888 yuan. By 7pm yesterday no one had made any offers. That may surprise Mr Rogers, who is widely quoted in mainland and Hong Kong press. During the weekend, he was featured as a keynote luncheon speaker at a Guangzhou investment seminar with an audience of about 600, some of whom paid as much as 3,800 yuan for the event. A dinner set for four, including Mr Rogers, compared with four tickets for a seminar is on offer at only a 12 per cent premium, with the possible compensation of a night of tailor-made investment advice. We suppose Mr Rogers could take this as an example of the difference in spending power between Guangzhou and Beijing, and use it to help guide him to the best investments. No turbulence in fees take Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan will be coming to town - soon. But not before he stops by the mainland to publicise his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. We heard that Mr Greenspan had originally been scheduled to come this week, but the trip was delayed at the last minute. Like Mr Rogers, Mr Greenspan is choosing southern China as his first destination, with a speech before an audience of a few thousand in Shenzhen. The maximum ticket price was initially set at about 3,000 yuan. You can only guess at how much world-class financiers such as Mr Greenspan can make after their retirement. Wheelock triggers question Perhaps it was all too predictable. The site at Pak Shek Kok, Tai Po, was sold at auction yesterday at the market-estimated price to a Nan Fung Development-led consortium, which bought two sites nearby six months ago. For a change, reporters and photographers dominated the auction and did most of the talking. In fact, they talked so loudly that auctioneer Chris Mills had to call 'quiet'. One question reporters may have had in mind was why representatives of Wheelock and Co, which triggered the land application list for this site, did not raise their hands until the final rounds. Flying into the past Foreign Correspondents' Club annual ball-goers were left scratching their heads on Saturday after seeing an advertisement from diamond sponsor Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, which offered its special business class fare to Vancouver including a special chop saying: 'Book Now! Offer ends Sept 13'. Too late, folks. Tycoons stock up on offerings It is lucky draw time for the city's tycoons on mainland stock offerings. A look at the five biggest initial public offerings in town showed that Lee Shau-kee led his counterparts with exposure to three new listings, including coal miner Hidili Industry International Development, Cosco Group's property arm Sino-Ocean Land Holdings and down-coat maker Bosideng. Rivals such as Li Ka-shing, Cheng Yu-tung, Robert Kuok, Peter Woo Kwong-ching and Joseph Lau Luen-hung have two stocks in hand. Watch this space for who will hit the biggest jackpot. Clarification: The tycoon we referred to on Saturday as selling half his stake in China Life was not Lee Shau-kee. For the record, Mr Lee still has not sold a single share in China Life. Financial fitness test How many roads must a man walk down before he can be called a knowledgeable investor? To find out, try the challenge from the Securities and Futures Commission's 'Investment Triathlon'. The watchdog has asked the public to take part in a multiple choice quiz ( www.investEd.hk ) starting every Tuesday from today. Twenty contestants will join a radio quiz on their financial knowledge and 10 will advance to a televised final. The champion will receive a cash prize of HK$30,000, sponsored by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing. The top 10 finalists will be invited to a dinner with Arthur Shek, a financial columnist with the Hong Kong Economic Times.