Analysis After Citic, who’s next among Chinese state firms to take their mega deals to Hong Kong?
Investors await second state firm to follow in footsteps of Citic's asset shuffle but conflict of interests between city officials may stall reform
The speed with which the Citic deal was planned before it was announced last week took many state company executives and government officials by surprise, sources said.
Such a major restructuring of a state enterprise would typically involve many parties, they said. One possible conflict that could hold up the process might be between the interests of the central and local governments.
While Beijing has been pushing for reform in the state-run sector, officials with power bases in cities such as Shanghai may be inclined to march to their own tune.
Two sources cited the case of Hong Kong-listed Jin Jiang Hotels - a subsidiary of Shanghai's Jin Jiang International, a major state-owned tourism operator - which was once considered an ideal platform to receive major asset injections from its parent firm, paving the way for a listing of the parent in Hong Kong.