A whistleblower from one of China’s most powerful banks says its shady dealings highlight how Hong Kong’s financial system is increasingly at the mercy of Beijing.
Listen to SupChina editor-at-large and Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo read this article.
The roadshow kicked off on a steamy autumn morning in Singapore. Over the course of two days, CLSA, a Hong Kong-based brokerage firm, hyped up a $250 million, three-year bond deal for CEFC China Energy Co., a huge oil and gas firm.
It was 2016, and CEFC was flying high. The company was fresh off a deal to take a stake in a Kazakhstan oil and gas company and a Czech Republic-based bank, plus the company was in the process of developing a massive oil reserve in Hainan, an island province of China.
CLSA was tasked with finding investors for CEFC’s dollar-denominated bond. And during the roadshow, bankers pushed its growth story: the company had more than $40 billion in annual revenue, 30,000 employees and had been recognized as “China’s Most Influential Company” and an “Asia Excellence Brand.” The company was also portrayed as being “closely aligned with national
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When Ken Wilcox, a former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, moved to Shanghai in 2011, he was optimistic and eager to start up the bank's new joint venture in China. A decade later, however, he is extremely cynical about U.S. business interests in China. While analysts will, rightly, be debating SVB's missteps in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, Wilcox insists the bank's challenges in China should not be overlooked.
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