Chinese apparel maker and retailer Baoxiniao has announced plans to raise up to CNY800 million finance for the opening of 178 new stores by issuing new shares. According to a report published by the company, its application for the public offering of A-shares has been approved by the Issuance Examination Committee of China Securities Regulatory Commission. Under [...]

 

A new ETF giving access to Chinese A shares is to be launched in Singapore next month.

The United FTSE Xinhua China A50 ETF, to be offered by the asset management subsidiary of United Overseas Bank (UOB), will be the first China A-shares fund to be denominated and traded in Singapore dollars.

Chinese A shares are denominated and traded in Chinese yuan and listed on the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges. Historically, access to the A-shares market in China has been limited to Chinese nationals and qualified foreign institutional investors (QFIIs) approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

The FTSE Xinhua China A50 Index is designed to measure the performance of the 50 largest China A-shares companies, based on market capitalization.

ETFs tracking A shares are already dominant in the Asian market. The Hong Kong-listed iShares Asia Trust, which also tracks the FTSE Xinhua A50 Index, is the largest Asian ETF, with $6.7

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Alternative-energy investors have pointed to China as the fastest way on the planet to make money in the green revolution. I guess they never went beyond the executive summary of a recent report titled “The Green Evolution - Environmental Policies and Practice in China’s Banking Sector.”

Written by Friends of the Earth in San Francisco, and distributed by BankTrack, the international network that monitors commercial and investment banks, the report offers a promising future for China’s massive and lucrative clean-up - until you reach page 15.

The report is an 18-month update of key developments on a program that China implemented to cut funding for companies that contribute to the country’s devastating pollution.

The program, China’s Green Securities policy, was launched in February 2008 by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Beijing was trying to cut polluters off at the knees by making it more difficult

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Deutsche Bank, already a major player in European exchange-traded securities, owns a 19% share in Harvest.

 

The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is in discussions with Harvest Fund Management Co., one of China's biggest asset managers, about the establishment of an exchange-traded fund based on the Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 Index.

The move, first reported on the Chinese investor Web site, cnstock.com, provides a glimpse of an interesting battle taking shape between the two big Chinese stock exchanges as ETFs become higher profile among Chinese investors.

The Shanghai-Shenzhen 300 Index is a composite index of the biggest stocks on both the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

In August, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and AIG-Huatai Fund Management Co. filed an ETF application with the China Securities Regulatory Commission for a similar ETF. Because the index itself is split between listings on the rival exchanges, the ETF application included a twist.

The application

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The China Securities Regulatory Commission will launch margin trading business for securities firms, it announced on Sunday. No introduction date was given, though a test run” will be implemented, and “extended gradually .

The China Securities Regulatory Commission — Beijing's equivalent of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — is pressing the country's listed companies to adopt more generous dividend policies. Previously, China-listed companies that wanted to issue additional stock had to pay out at least 20% of their annual average profit for the past three consecutive years in the form of shareholder dividends (cash or stock). The CSRC wants to raise the minimum amount to at least 30% of profits to shareholders. If a company refuses to comply, it will be punished by not being able to float new bonds or sell additional shares. According to the Chinese agency, "Giving fair returns to shareholders is part of listed firms' responsibilities and is the foundation of stable and healthy development of the securities market." ...

I had an amazing time at the Beijing Olympics, and even though I didn't have tickets for the closing ceremony, I did watch it on TV and was again blown away by the scale, precision, and choreography of the Chinese. The two-hour show, which included one of the largest firework displays I've ever seen, a cast of thousands of costumed performers, acrobats, stunt men on springs and cheerleaders was a breathtaking spectacle that I will remember for many, many years. And I was even more astonished by the superhuman feats of athletes like Michael Phelps' eight gold medal performances and Usain Bolt's trio of world records. You'd have a hard time finding anybody who wasn't blown away by the Beijing Olympics and the job of the Chinese organizers. But as exciting as the ...