Who is the real outsider in the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing director election?

In the outsider versus insider battle for the empty board seat at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx), the divisions are blurred and the rhetoric sharp.

As London-based metal firm Metdist head Apurv Bagri and Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager Edward Chin Chi-kin square off for the seat in the coming annual general meeting due April 28, Bagri seems the obvious outsider as it would be the first time someone based outside Hong Kong and from the metal trade would make it to the board if he gets past the post. But the board thinks otherwise, having just issued a circular urging shareholders to vote for him.

Chin, on the other hand, is from Hong Kong but his politics makes him an uneasy fit for the board of a major institution in a city where the business elite likes to steer clear of politics. An open supporter of the Occupy Central movement in 2014, Chin is still active in politics.

Oscar Wong Sai-hung, whose retirement created the vacancy that Bagri and China are trying to fill, has extended his support to Chin. But independent advisory firm ISS, like HKEx, is recommending investors to vote for Bagri.

HKEx chairman Chow Chung-kong has said HKEx is supporting Bagri because none of the existing 13 board members have any experience in metals or commodities trading. In 2012, HKEx spent £1.38 billion (HK$15 billion) to buy the London Metal Exchange, in its first step to expand into commodities.

Chin told the South China Morning Post that he has no intention of bringing any political agenda to HKEx.