Hong Kong's GEM Fades a Bit
The Hong Kong stock exchange's Growth Enterprise Market faces the risk of fading into irrelevance as its biggest members prepare to move their listings to the more-liquid main board and as neighboring Shenzhen launches a rival small-cap exchange.
"Qualities of the GEM companies are the most-crucial problem," said Kingston Lin, a director at Prudential Brokerage. "Investors' confidence in the GEM has been falling over the last few years" -- that is, for most of its existence.
At the GEM's launching ceremony in November 1999, K.S. Lo, the listing committee chairman, forecast that the second board, with its less-stringent listing conditions, would attract 100 companies in its first year and boost its total market capitalization to more than 100 billion Hong Kong dollars, or about US$13 billion. The aim was to set up an Asian version of the Nasdaq Stock Market, steering share listings away from the U.S. and toward Hong Kong, thus boosting the city's status as a financial center.
Four-and-a-half years later, that dream looks tattered.
The first company to go public on the GEM, China Agrotech Holdings, became the first to defect to the main board, after barely a year on the second board.
"It is easier to raise funds on the main board than the GEM," China Agrotech Chairman Wu Shao Ning said. "We hope this will help our development in the future."
The GEM board's defenders can point to some success: The number of GEM-listed companies rose to 195 at the end of May from 171 a year earlier. In contrast, the Nasdaq Stock Market in the U.S. boasts 3,300 issuers -- just nine of those are Hong Kong companies.
But it's hard to trade stocks on the GEM. Average daily turnover plunged 67% to HK$60 million in May from a year earlier, or equal to 0.6% of the volume on the Nasdaq's worst day last month. The prospect of GEM becoming an Asian alternative to the wide choice in stocks and deep liquidity the Nasdaq offers is dim indeed.
Adding to the GEM's woes is the competition it already faces from 10 kilometers away, just over the Chinese border in Shenzhen.
Two weeks ago, the Shenzhen stock exchange launched China's own small-cap board. Chinese media report that 1,000 companies are lining up to list on the new small- and midsize-enterprise board with the first listings coming this month.
With so little liquidity, Hong Kong's second board is being treated more and more like a waiting room for big companies looking to move to the more-liquid main board. The combined market capitalization of GEM stocks is only about HK$74 billion -- or about the same as China Unicom, China's second-biggest mobile-phone company.
The board's market capitalization is set to contract further -- by as much as a third -- as a handful of its biggest companies prepare to abandon it.
TOM Group, previously known as tom.com, was once regarded as the Gem's crown jewel, with its vanity stock code of 8001 -- all GEM stock codes begin with 8 -- and backing by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing.
But no more. TOM is heading for the main board as early as July, with three other top-10 GEM-listed companies also preparing to head to the big leagues.
Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings said earlier this week that it will move to the main board. Also on the way is Hongkong.com, which raised HK$1 billion on the GEM in an IPO in 2000 at the height of the dot-com boom. CK Life Sciences International (Holdings) -- the biggest GEM company by market capitalization and another one backed by Mr. Li -- has said it will follow suit.
"The GEM is supposed to offer investors some high-growth, high-risk enterprises," a fund manager with a European firm said. "But what we can see is a lot of risks but only a few growth stories."
Because of the sparse trading and the high concentration of shareholdings on the GEM board, investors find it difficult to make big block trades in GEM stocks, so they hold off buying. And the absence of buyers leaves trading thin.
"Many fund managers can't put their money into GEM companies because of restrictions on minimum market cap and public float required by their respective institutions," said Steve Kwok, a director at TIS Securities.
香港创业板面临“背叛”窘境
香港联交所创业板市场有可能会变得无足轻重，该市场中的几家大公司正准备转战流动性更好的主板市场，而近邻深圳市建立二板市场也对香港创业板构成威胁。
信诚证券有限公司(Prudential Brokerage Ltd.)联席董事连敬涵(Kingston Lin)说，创业板上市公司的质量是至关重要的问题。过去几年中，投资者对于创业板的信心一直在减退，这也就是说，他们越来越不信任在该市场上市的大多数公司了。
1999年11月在创业板开板仪式上，香港联交所创业板上市委员会主席罗嘉瑞说，他预计这个上市标准较为宽松的二板市场将在第一年吸引100家公司来此上市，市值总额将达1,000亿港元，合130亿美元左右。创立该市场的目的是建立一个亚洲的那斯达克市场，吸引企业放弃美国来港上市，从而提升香港作为金融中心的地位。
4年半后，这个梦想似乎有些支离破碎。
香港创业板市场迎来的首家上市公司是浩伦农业科技集团有限公司(China Agrotech Holdings Ltd., 1073.HK, 简称：浩伦农业科技)。在二板市场交易不到一年后，该公司又成为第一家背离创业板转投主板怀抱的企业。
浩伦农业科技主席吴少宁说，在主板市场融资较创业板容易一些，他们希望这能有助于公司未来的发展。
创业板市场的支持者可以说，该市场也取得了一些成功：截至5月底，在创业板上市的公司数量从上年同期的171家增至了195家。同期在美国那斯达克市场上市的公司共计3,300家，其中只有9家是香港企业。
然而，在香港创业板市场进行股票交易并非易事。该市场5月份的日均成交额较上年同期缩水67%至6,000万港元，仅相当于那斯达克市场上个月表现最差那天的日成交额的0.6%。创业板成为股票众多、流通性好的亚洲那斯达克的梦想的确有些遥不可及。
令香港创业板悲惨境遇雪上加霜的是，它面临著来自仅10公里之遥的深圳股市的竞争。
两周前，深圳股票交易所推出了内地自己的小型股市场。据内地媒体报导，有1,000家企业正排队等待在深圳中小企业板市场上市，首批股票将于本月上市交易。
由于流动性差，香港二板市场越来越成为大型企业进入主板市场的跳板。创业板市场的市值总计不过740亿港元左右，仅相当于中国第二大移动电话运营商中国联通股份有限公司(China Unicom Ltd., 0762.HK, 简称：中国联通)一家公司的市值。
而且该市场市值还将进一步缩减，最多可能减少三分之一，因为几家在此上市的大公司正准备撤出。
原名tom.com的Tom集团有限公司(Tom Group Ltd., 8001.HK, 简称：Tom集团)曾被视为创业板市场王冠上的一颗宝石，这从它目空一切的股票代码8001（所有创业板股票的交易代码都以8开头）中就可见一斑，而且该公司有香港大亨李嘉诚作后盾。
然而这都已是如风往事。TOM最早将于7月份在主板市场上市，另外，创业板的十大上市公司中还有3家正准备进军主板市场。
凤凰卫视控股有限公司(Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Ltd., 8002.HK, 简称：凤凰卫视)本周早些时候说，准备转到主板市场上市。香港国际网络公司(Hongkong.com Corp., 8006.HK, 简称：香港网)也在蠢蠢欲动，它在2000年网络业增长高峰时通过在创业板上市筹集了10亿港元。长江生命科技集团有限公司(CK Life Sciences International (Holdings) Inc., 8222.HK, 简称：长江生命科技)也属李嘉诚麾下，是创业板市场上市值最大的企业，该公司已经表示将转战主板市场。
某欧洲企业的基金经理说，创业板本应给投资者提供一些高增长、高风险企业，然而人们在这里看到的只是大量风险和寥寥无几的增长机会。
由于交投清淡且持股集中，投资者发现在创业板市场很难进行大宗交易，因此他们暂缓买进股票，而买家的稀缺导致交投更为清淡。
金鼎综合证券（香港）有限公司(TIS Securities)主管Steve Kwok说，许多基金经理无法将资金投入创业板上市公司，因为他们各自的机构对于最低市值和股票最低公开发行数额有一些限制。
