Hong Kong Airlines boardroom showdown intensifies as unknown entity Grand City Investment Capital claims to have acquired 34 per cent stake
- New player emerges as government deadline to reveal who controls the airline looms
- Former chairman requests Grand City be restrained from acting on its shareholding in new court injunction
A fight for the ownership of Hong Kong Airlines has been intensified by a new party claiming substantial interest in the company, as a government-imposed deadline to reveal who is in charge looms.
Unknown entity Grand City Investment Capital (GCIC) said on Tuesday night that it had taken on “substantial indirect interest” in Hong Kong’s third-largest airline, and financial documents showed it had acquired the entire shareholdings of Frontier Investment Partner (FIP), which the airline’s former Zhong Guosong had used to instigate a boardroom coup.
Disputing Zhong’s claims of control, GCIC slammed his faction’s “inappropriate” corporate and legal actions to dispute the company’s ownership, which on Tuesday included attempting to serve an injunction on the airline’s management team and directors.
“Their claim is without merit and their conduct, including the use of defamatory and inaccurate public statements about the airline’s affairs, contradicts their stated intention to act in the best interests of the airline,” said Grand City. “On the contrary, their behaviour appears to have the aim of disrupting the airline. We intend to take appropriate legal action to vigorously protect our position in response.”
But as GCIC’s share purchase came to light, Zhong immediately disputed the transaction between FIP and Grand City in a second injunction.
