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Walter  Kwok bounces back despite brothers and rumours
Sun Hung Kai Properties chairman Walter Kwok Ping-sheung, who temporarily stepped down in February, is ready to take the helm again.
Yesterday, a source  told Lai See that Mr Kwok had passed a series of medical check-ups in the past three months and had passed with flying colours.
The oldest of the three Kwok brothers handed over the chair temporarily on February 18, after what sources  said was a clash with siblings over his relationship with a woman. It also sparked speculation about his health.
The source did not  say anything about Mr Kwok's relations with his two younger brothers or the mystery woman.
Citic Pacific goes mauve
Citic Pacific is different things to different people.
Some call it a red chip, because it is the original Citic Group's flagship in Hong Kong. Others say blue chip, because it has been a solid and respected Hang Seng Index stock since the early 1990s. Some even call it mauve chip - because that's what you get when you blend blue and red.
But colour-coding is out of fashion at Citic Pacific, which dubs itself a 'multinational corporation'.
At its  annual general meeting yesterday, managing director Henry Fan Hung-ling made the multinational reference in explaining to 200 shareholders why the board chose English as the main language in its AGM.
'We are now a multinational business in Australia and other countries,' said Mr Fan. 'So we decided to offer shareholders an instant translation headset.'
We saw chairman Larry Yung Chi-kin looking lost a couple of times during the meeting. But he drew a round of applause after his concluding statement: 'Can I invite you all  for refreshments?'
In the press conference, Mr Yung answered most questions in his unique Jiangsu-accented Cantonese, but admitted to a group of puzzled Cantonese-speaking reporters that his preferred language was Putonghua. That's the price you pay for globalisation.
No questions asked
Unlike  Mr Yung, China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou breezed through the whole meeting in 20 minutes.
And we heard the following line repeated 10 times at the meeting: 'If any shareholders would like to offer an opinion, please  do so now,' he said, pausing for two seconds. 'No? We will start the voting later.'
Rogers may yet eat his words
Jim Rogers, the commodities investment guru, is still wildly bullish on commodities and is nearly going hoarse from spinning the same quips and lines over and over again as he advises investors to buy.
'Here's my hot tip: Go buy a bottle of  sake. It's made from rice. The price of  sake will be much higher a few years from now than it is now,' Mr Rogers told journalists during a teleconference.
And he was only half joking. Mr Rogers is bullish on almost all food commodities, energy and metals.
'This may be the first time in our lifetimes that people are not going to be able to get food at any price,' he said.
For all of his apparent foresight in predicting this commodities boom, he always hedges his predictions with a self-deprecating 'well... I could be wrong.'
And indeed he can be, because one decade ago he was touting investments in Zimbabwe, whose government has since fallen into a shambles and whose people are now struggling to find enough to eat.
Top analysts lauded
Yesterday we reported the Institutional Investor's report card on analysts by industry sector; today we highlight them by country.
Topping the China research among 277 voters was JP Morgan's Frank Gong and his team, followed by Goldman Sachs' Thomas Deng and Citigroup's Lan Xue.
JP Morgan analyst Steven Li  won the top spot on Hong Kong research, followed by Citigroup's Anil Daswani and UBS' Andrew Look.
Overall in Asia, JP Morgan and Citigroup shared the title of top 2008 All-Asia Research Team. This was the first time that Citigroup had topped the Asia poll, having improved its rankings by two steps a year since coming seventh place in 2005.



Lai See