MTR minority shareholders should vote against ‘bribe’ special dividend
MRT’s plan to borrow heavily to pay for a HK$25.76 billion special dividend comes with a catch
A taxpayer bailout for MTR Corp’s long-delayed high-speed train line to the mainland was broadly welcomed yesterday by investment analysts who argued that stretched gearing ratios and added repayment costs were worth it to ensure the track will finally be finished.
Business, Dec. 2
Let’s get it straight right away that no-one in Hong Kong ever asked for or wanted this second railway to the border. It was foisted on us by Beijing bureaucrats who came around one day to ask us how we were getting along with our share of the national high-speed rail initiative.
“Ahh..., umm..., well, that is to say, umm..., ahh...,” we replied.
“Better get on with it then,” the mandarins responded. “It’s part of the five-year plan and Big Brother won’t be happy if you don’t do your part.”
So we quickly cobbled together a rah-rah public consultation for it, did an even quicker cobbling job of engineering studies that proved woefully deficient in their geotechnical details, and committed ourselves to building a superfluous rail link to a remote suburb of Guangzhou.