TIME is always a great healer. Even more so in Hong Kong, which often shows the collective memory of a goldfish. The boys down at Peregrine would no doubt wish that were so, as they wait for their day before the stock exchange's disciplinary committee on that business last year of having manipulated certain initial public offerings.
The big bird has already taken the rap - and a $3.5 million fine to boot - from the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), and there is a general feeling in the industry that the exchange will not be going out of its way for a tar-and-feather spectacle.
The SFC judgment on Peregrine was delivered last September, so it might seem odd that the stock exchange has taken so long to take up the task.
However, we hear that the wheels of justice are finally ready to turn down at the exchange and a November hearing has been set for Peregrine to appear before the committee.
It hasn't been lost on a few old cynics around town that November happens to be the time when Charles Lee Yeh-kwong relinquishes the chairman's seat at the stock exchange.
Mr Lee has always been allied to the Peregrine-Li Ka-shing camp within the exchange, so we wondered if the temperature was rising a little down in the Peregrine nest.SO those eager Americans are at it again. Yes, bankers from the United States can expect a testing time in the coming months from gloating Brits who will spare no pleasure in pointing to the brokers' dilemma: to have or not to have a securities licence. Our only advice would be to not mention World War II, lest they become intolerable.