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SCMP Reporter

RAISING cash on the stock market is an expensive business, usually swallowing $5 million-$10 million in professional fees. But here's a cheaper alternative:    A trading company in Arbuthnot Road has been lucky enough to be offered a great new way of 'raising capital and, in the process, getting free advertising and creating new business contacts.

   'Business owners and operators like yourself, with an investment of only US$5, can receive an additional working capital you may require, without the need to apply for a loan (and repay).'    You've guessed it - it's a corporate chain letter, even though the letter lamely states it is 'not a chain letter but a syndicate for raising capital'.

   We've had dozens of personal chain letters before - thanks to our offer to destroy them on behalf of any readers who don't want to tempt fate by doing it themselves - but never a corporate one.

   It claims that some company called Brompton Agency of Spain used the letter to raise US$525,000, as well as getting business contacts worldwide.

   You just send $5 to the people above you in the list, copy it out with your name on the bottom and send it out to 50 other firms.

   Guess the Hong Kong stock exchange shouldn't lose too much sleep over this one.

   Cash check  A COUPLE of bankers, perhaps eager for business, were keen that we should follow up our piece on Chris Patten opening Coutts and Co's office with some revelations about Chris's own banking habits.

   In particular, they asked, does Chris have a bank account? Or does he carry a huge pile of traveller's cheques around with him?    Does he use a cash machine or does he tell John Elliott the secret number and send him out to queue on his behalf?    Well, an official spokesperson says Chris has got a bank account, and yes, he queues at cash machines. He's also got a cheque book.

   Presumably, his account will automatically close on June 30, 1997.

   Otherwise, like all other government activities straddling the handover, it would still be awaiting Chinese approval, and he'd have had to spend the last two years borrowing cash from his wife.

   Songworthy  THE worthy Po Leung Kuk is going to be the beneficiary of one of those celebrity Cantonese opera productions next week, from the Wah Yan Dramatic Society, with a selection of top civil servants and businessfolk swapping suits for make-up and hai fuk outfits.

   Among the vocal chords to be given a severe testing will be those of Po Leung Kuk chairman John Wong, Secretary for Home Affairs Michael Suen Ming-yeung, Director of Education Dominic Wong Shing-wah, Patrick Sham Pak of the Royal Observatory, John Chan Cho-chak of Kowloon Motor Bus, and Anson Chan Fang On-san's sister Maria.

   It's in English, supposedly so top government officials can understand it.

   Oddly, when Italian operas are performed at the Cultural Centre, they always seem to stay in Italian.

   Off Peak?  NOT only are the Aussies flogging off some property in Singapore, they've flogged some off in Hong Kong.

   Once upon a time, an Australian diplomat had a rather pleasant house in Chung Hom Kok, between Repulse Bay and Stanley, a rather refined place with two storeys.

   Not any more. They flogged it off a couple of weeks ago for a bit more than $40 million.

   We don't know who bought it, but unlike the Singapore deal it's not Wharf.

   Anyone who fancies living in the home of an Australian diplomat and doesn't mind cleaning the wine boxes out of the cupboards should get on the phone quick, because apparently some task force from Canberra has been crawling all over the region trying to find some way of containing the costs of their missions up here, and at least one further sale is going to be announced.

   Surely the bean counters back at home can't really be throwing Consul-General Jocelyn Chey out of her Peak mansion and forcing her into a 650 square feet flat in Happy Valley?    All true-blue Australians should be organising a petition immediately to save this grand old monument for posterity.

  Inefishent  FOR some reason, forex dealers seem to be hooked on TeleFISHion, the zero-budget ATV programme where they point a camera at a tank of fish.

   And what terrible things they have seen. Fred the Forex Dealer watched in horror yesterday as a fish, obviously dying, struggled to move around the tank.

   Fred, who confided that he's a bit of an expert on fish, thinks they've got some form of bacteria or parasite in the tank, and its not the first on-screen death he's seen.

   An unattended camera pointed at a tank of dying fish: there's a metaphor here for the state of Hong Kong television, and no one need look too hard to find it.



Chain letter exposed despite cunning disguise